


Duty (An Armorer/Paladin Story)

by Hephastia



Series: Emma Harrington [2]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-04
Updated: 2019-07-05
Packaged: 2020-06-09 12:26:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 43
Words: 115,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19475899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hephastia/pseuds/Hephastia
Summary: The continuing adventures of The Armorer, Emma Harrington, and the Avengers.Emma, Sigurd, and Torburn are my own characters as are the characters in Night Terror. The Avengers are the property of Marvel. The timeline springs more or less from the MCU after the events in Civil War, with a little bit of information assist from the comics. This was originally published on Wattpad in 2016, and contains some minor modifications.





	1. Frankly, it's just not a good day

I paced in the quinjet as I listened to the chatter over my headset. I could picture the action as I listened to Cap position the team, and their comments on the action. Bruce had been with me until just recently, when they'd needed him to take out a couple of machine gun nests that the army had set up as a last resort and the bad guys had captured. We were on a beach with jungle coming right up to the sand. It made spotting and neutralizing the bad guys difficult. We had a homegrown religious fundamentalist on our hands with a cult of followers; we'd been told it was a Jonestown type tragedy and gone in to help with body recovery and cleanup; instead of poison in the Flavr Aid, there'd been an unknown substance that made them all-for lack of a better word--crazy. Crazy and strong and tough to kill; they'd wiped out a detachment of the country's army. We were trying, with fresh military, to contain them to their compound while a solution was researched, but it was tough going. They were hot to get out into the world and spread the word. And the word was their particular brand of fanaticism combined with the substance they'd ingested, so everybody was most insistent that they stay put.

The radio crackled; we had a contingent of doctors coming in from our Seattle facility to get samples to help figure out what was done to these people and determine if it was reversible, and their ETA was thirty minutes. Personally, I had a bet with Wanda that the effect of whatever compound would wear off. She thought I was crazy--not without justification, as I'd been mutated myself and the changes had been on the cellular level--but from what I'd seen, permanent mutations just didn't come from digestion. The GI tract is pretty tough.

The battle seemed to be winding down. The army had brought some of its engineers and they'd erected a metal palisade around the compound. The hard part was getting the cultists back in it, but it sounded like most people had been rounded up. There were a few fatalities of the altered cultists, and these were being set aside for the professionals' arrival. The army would stay; they were bringing in doctors of their own to assist ours. They were also figuring out logistics for supply and continuing containment. Hopefully that wouldn't be necessary.

There should be time to finish mopping up before the doctors landed. I acknowledged this information and told the team. Steve confirmed that they should be largely done by then. I put a mark by Hawkeye's name on my list; he'd just cussed again when taken by surprise by a rogue cultist and bapped the guy over the head with his bow. The swear jar was still kind of a joke, but we had gotten the TV and Blu Ray player we'd originally planned on already as well as a party. This engagement might just put us over the top for another party after everybody settled up at the end of the mission. Tony was snarking as he encouraged a group of cultists through the gate with stinging rubber bullets from his suit's armament and I heard a woody crack as Thor brought down a tree with his hammer. Why? Dunno.

"He heard somebody coming his way and wanted to turn them," Cap said in exasperation before anybody could ask. He went to check on the situation, which is when it blew up.

"Get ready for incoming, A," Cap instructed me tensely. Shit. That meant it was one of ours, and I put down the rear gate of the quinjet. Over the headset, Thor was frantically apologizing, Steve was exasperated, and Vision was blasting Thor verbally. Finally Cap told me Vision was coming in. I confirmed and waited until Vision showed up carrying Wanda; without being told, he set her on the treatment table and I activated the AI.

"The doctors are about twenty minutes out now," I told him as he hovered. Literally. "Can you get on the com and let them know what the situation is?" The AI sprang up and Vision reluctantly turned away as the scan began. Wanda was unconscious and bloody, which I felt was consistent with having a tree dropped on her. The AI had a robust male Australian accent, one Tony had developed for his personal system but found it irritating; the rest of us liked it, and it was repurposed for our medical AI. The AI didn't see anything that was awful and life threatening, and Vision consented to sit with Wanda until the doctors showed up. I mopped up some blood after snapping on some treatment gloves, cleaned the worst cuts, and used butterfly bandages on the ones that would need stitches. Which, fortunately, I wasn't going to have to do. I'd been kind of pushed into my impromptu medical role since I'd started coming along on missions as The Armorer. I sat in the quinjet ready to fix things if they went awry, but I'd only had to pry Tony out of his Iron Man suit once, and since I was there, I picked up operating the AI system as well, read the manuals for the quinjet. This was the first time I'd actually used it.

I heard a commotion outside, and raced down the ramp. Cap yelled at me for turning off the com, which I didn't remember doing, but the problem was obvious; he and Iron Man were supporting Thor between them. He had a tree branch shoved through his chest.

Thor sagged to the ground short of the quinjet; Hulk burst from the trees and began bellowing; there wasn't time to calm him down, and Natasha wasn't on this mission anyway. Why only one person learned the code phrases to pack the Hulk back in Bruce was something I didn't understand. I ducked back into the jet, told Vision to clear the table, and grabbed the restraints. I'd worked with our engineers on a quick-deploy restraint for Hulk, and this would be its first use in the field. I waited until he smashed his fists on the ground, then brought the manacles down over his wrists. They immediately snapped closed, and Hulk tried to twist out of them, surprise quite evident on his face as they held.

"Calm down." I told him abruptly. "We don't have time for a temper tantrum." He was so surprised that he cut off mid-bellow. I turned my attention to Thor. He was on his knees, kept upright by Steve and Tony. Mjolnir's loop handle was around his wrist, so at least I wouldn't have to go searching for it. I scuttled back inside the quinjet for the handheld scanner; we waited in silence for the diagnosis. Beyond the obvious, I mean; obviously there were ribs broken and the lung punctured. The tree limb protruded front and back. The AI had begun to recite the damage and Cap was explaining concisely that in the fuss over Wanda's injuries that a cultist had exploded into action with a branch broken off the tree Thor had downed when I heard a familiar sound. The Bifrost light surrounded us, and Tony and Steve scrambled clear; I grabbed Thor's uninjured shoulder and arm to keep him from increasing the damage by falling.

We resolved in the Observatory on Asgard, and a frown creased Heimdall's brow as he saw the gravely injured son of his king. Their medical personnel exploded into the Observatory right after we arrived. There was a moment of dead silence as they beheld Thor's condition, and then they went to work. They were having trouble getting the back of the wheelchair off, so I pulled out my super-sharp knife, twin to the one I'd made for Odin, and cut it off. Thor was lowered gently onto the seat, and they raced away. I followed, answering questions about what had happened. I shook my hands out gingerly; they were feeling a little numb and I wondered if I was developing carpal tunnel. Anything to avoid thinking about Thor; his face had been ashy and blood had pumped thickly around the wound despite our efforts not to move the branch.

In the medical facility, I could hear raised voices; Mjolnir was in the way. I stepped into the room, picked up the hammer, eased the loop off Thor's wrist. "I'm just taking this for now," I told him. He was unconscious, but it never hurt to behave as if he could hear me. "I'll keep it for you until you wake up." I clutched it to my chest and backed away as Thor was swarmed by the professionals, some of whom looked at me funny. Thora, a lower level healer, touched my shoulder.

"Let us check your mutations, since you are here," she murmured, resolutely not looking at the hammer in my hands. Any time I was on Asgard, they checked to make sure that my fireproofing was still good. Thora seemed reluctant to talk after I hopped off the table and collected Mjolnir again.

"Your mutation is spreading," she said bluntly, finally.

"The fireproofing?" I asked. "I'm not going to lie, that's not so bad."

"No, the mutation that made your skin impervious," she said gently. "It has come back, and the cells throughout your skin are showing signs of reactivation."

I stared at her in shock. "I thought you guys had gotten rid of it permanently," I managed to say.

"We thought so," she said. "But your case is unique to our experience in the nine realms, and it looks like what we managed to do was suppress it."

"Can't you suppress it again?" I asked anxiously. Impervious skin doesn't sound too bad unless you get hurt and they can't fix you because they can't cut your skin.

She shook her head. "It is inadvisable," she said bluntly, and sighed. "The cells seem to be overreacting. If the mutation returns, stronger for the treatment, each time...we cannot risk further treatment. As it is, I am afraid that the density of your skin is increasing. Your body fat decreased three percent from the last time we scanned you, but your weight has increased four percent. As yet, the physical appearance and function of your skin is unaffected, but that would probably change. You might experience a lessening of your nerve function--"

"My hands are feel a little numb," I interrupted her. "I wondered if I was getting carpal tunnel syndrome." She frowned and scanned my hands and forearms again.

"No, I am afraid this is the mutation again," she said. "However, it seems that your hands and wrists are stabilized; there's no sign of active mutation there. Nerve function is down by five percent from your last scan. It doesn't look as if you'll lose any more sensation, but I believe that the loss is permanent, and that this will probably affect all your skin in a month, at the latest. I know that this is unwelcome news." She shook her head in sympathy as I stared at her. "Your fear of injury should be relieved somewhat," she went on compassionately. "Your skin will also provide some protection against concussive force, so if you are hit, it will be more difficult to damage the tissues underneath or the bone." I just stared at her in shock. I was really liking mostly normal skin again.

She went on, hitting the highlights of what was expected. It wouldn't affect mucous membranes and the mutation wasn't migrating to my organs or muscles, at least. "It affects only one specific type of cell," she offered. "You will still be able to cut your fingernails and your hair; those are unaffected. The cells have increased metabolism, so you will need to eat more calories to compensate. Your body fat is too low for your age and gender." We agreed that she should take a skin sample; they could culture it and see if they could come up with a flat out cure. She also took out my appendix, just in case it flared up after my skin reverted. With the technology they possessed, it took five minutes and a local nerve block; she also collected the skin sample. While Thora was cleaning up the few tools that she had used, I unsheathed my knife and poked the tip into my skin. I was rewarded with a bright drop of blood and was relieved. If the worst happened, I still had a remedy. I could make scalpel blades using that alloy, just in case.

"Your work remains effective," a voice from the doorway said dryly, and I looked over to see Odin in the door. I nodded.

"Doesn't cut the wind, but apparently it works on rocks," I said, trying and failing for lightness. "How's Thor?"

A smile twitched at the corners of his mouth. "It will take more than a branch to kill Thor," he said. "He will be kept here for his recovery." He held out his hand, and I got up and brought Mjolnir over to him.

His smile remained after he took the hammer from me. "It is odd to see a little human carrying the formidable Mjolnir," he commented.

I could still feel the uncanny energy from it. "I don't like to," I said. "It feels weird."

"It is the power of lightning."

"I don't like it," I repeated, smiling a little. "I wouldn't want to try to use it. I don't think it would want me to."

That got Odin's full attention. "Explain."

"I feel like it consents to me occasionally carrying it around. I don't think its tolerance extends to me actually wielding it."

"Interesting." He looked from the hammer to me. "But you have no difficulty with the hammer I gave you."

"No, but the little hammer is a whole different thing," I say, unsure how to explain it.

"Its charm is to assist the worthy craftsman," Odin mused. "Although you could strike a person with it, its purpose is not war." He offered his arm, and after thanking Thora, I took it and we began the walk to the Observatory. We chatted, and he thanked me for visiting Loki. I told him a couple of stories about his son in confinement, and he seemed reassured that everything was working out for all those concerned. "Loki has never aspired to be a warrior, though of course he learned the warrior's arts when he was younger. Frigga taught him her magic, as a diversion and employment as well as something a mother could teach her son to do. Perhaps I should not have permitted it."

"To do what instead?" I asked mildly. "He's smarter than Thor, restless, ambitious." Odin bristled a little.

"Had he applied himself, he could have become a warrior of Asgard, a good general for his brother."

I looked at him cynically. "He could have used his position as a general to foment rebellion. And don't look at me like that. Earth's history has examples of popular generals who have used that support to overthrow their rulers. Coups d'etat. And Loki is terribly charismatic. It would have been a disaster."

Odin glared at me; the force not at all dulled by the eyepatch. "And what would you suggest?"

"I don't know, I don't know the first thing about rule. But something to engage him that has nothing to do with politics or the military. Maybe the chancellor of your universities, or perhaps he could be appointed to a responsible post in another realm. I think what he wants is the public acclaim Thor gets. But acclaim for his talents and abilities. To be recognized as Thor's equal. And in some ways, he is Thor's superior, just as in other ways Thor is his." I shrugged. "You raised him to rule but gave him no realm." Odin stomped along beside me.

"And Thor! He refuses my throne," he groused. "He refuses to do his duty. He should be learning statescraft, how to rule, not just lead on the battlefield."

"He won't listen to me," I said, shrugging.

"And what have you been telling him?" he said, stopping.

"To stop hiding. If rule is such an anathema to him, work to rehabilitate his brother, who apparently did a really good job of ruling." Odin growled. "Barter for time," I offered. "Some of the Avengers may be immortal--I'm thinking specifically of the Hulk, because he isn't aging although Dr Banner is. But most of us will die, within the century. A hundred years is only a moment to Asgardians. He could barter with you to stay largely on Earth until the current Avengers die out, then return. My final suggestion was that he marry, produce a kid and heir to the throne. You could train your grandchild as your heir."

Odin grunted, offered his arm again, and we strolled on. "He wants to marry for love," Odin grumbled. "I wed Frigga because she gave me wise council. Love grew, later."

"You could remarry," I pointed out. "Have another kid." Odin swatted away the suggestion.

"We do not reproduce as readily as you humans," he grumbled.

I spread my hands. "Those were just my suggestions. Perhaps your advisors could come up with other compromises. I don't really know your culture, and anyway, I have my own problems. Smaller than yours, perhaps, but important to a smaller person, anyway."

After a moment, Odin said, "I will instruct the healers to attend your case. If a cure can be found, they will find it." Then, after a further pause, he asked about my odd armor, so I explained my slightly expanded role. He asked a few questions about that and our AI.

We continued in silence until we reached the Observatory. Heimdall glanced between his king and me, and after I thanked him for his timely intervention and Odin for his help with the healers, sent me back. He returned me to the usual landing spot by the housing block, so I went indoors. At my door, Sigurd was waiting, and woofed at me before going up the stairs. I followed him up to the third floor. Everybody was back, including Wanda, curled up on the sofa by Vision. I gave them my update on Thor, making sure they knew there was no timeline on his return. Then I went downstairs, showered and changed, setting aside the parts to be laundered and putting the rest in a sack to take back to their stands in my workshop. When I went back upstairs with the dogs, I didn't mention what else had happened during the trip to Asgard.


	2. And then it gets worse

We didn't hear from Thor for awhile, but given the nature of his injury and his dad, we didn't really expect to. I was distracted; it had been a blow to find out that the mutation I liked the least was making a comeback. Even with my best alloy for knife-making, it did require a decent amount of pressure to cut the skin, so I abandoned the notion of making scalpel blades for regular holders; they popped right out. I made complete instruments, the blade and handle as one integrated piece. Once I got the design right, I spent a week focused on making enough for all my locations--my workshop, the facility medical unit, a couple for each quinjet, and I made a few for the Asgardian healers, just in case. Doesn't hurt to be thorough. When I'd finally come to terms with it, I went to the clinic with my blades and explained the situation. Then I found Nick in his office and told him what I'd found out. He was less concerned about the diagnosis as about how I was handling it, but when I said I was ok, he accepted my word. I told him about the scalpels, just to be on the safe side in case there was an emergency.

T'Challa was coming for a visit--he and Steve Skyped a lot. Sam teased him about the bromance, but Steve was uncharacteristically grim.

One day, one of Odin's ravens was waiting for me when I got to my workshop. I took the note he had for me, thanked him, and he cawed once and flapped off. The paper was thick and soft, a pleasure to handle, and sealed with gold-flecked wax, an anachronistic touch I liked. I read the message from Thor once, blinked, read it again, and went to find Nick.

"Thor's preparing his return," I said when I got to his office. Nick looked at me attentively. "He needs a bigger suite. There's the end unit on the second floor that would be good."

"Suppose you tell me what's going on," he requested politely.

"Thor's coming back. With company." I passed him the note. He looked from the note to me and I shrugged.

"It came by Raven Express," I said. "You know what I know." We looked at each other across the expanse of his desk. He nodded, and called maintenance to move Thor's belongings to the new suite.

"You think we should call in a decorator?" Nick asked

"I wouldn't think so, changes should be left to the occupants," I said, and went back to work.

It was as if the letter made the whole day weird. Nothing I did worked right, I didn't like what they served for dinner, and everybody was out of sorts in the play room. Nobody could agree on the planning for the swear jar party. I sat back and listened when Nick came in to break the news to the group.

"Wait. Thor's getting married?" Sam asked. "That's....news."

"Should already be married, according to the message," Nick said. "When they show up, I expect you to be welcoming and friendly to the Lady Sif. It will probably feel awkward for her to relocate, and she won't have any friends." The group murmured, discussing the event.

"So I guess the swear jar party should be a reception," Scott said practically, and he and Natasha and Wanda--who was feeling much better--put their heads together. Vision listened, curious, and Bruce came over.

"Did you know about this?" he asked.

"One of Odin's ravens delivered the message this morning," I said. "I was kind of surprised, tell the truth, but it wasn't completely unexpected." I told him about my mediation attempts, and he laughed, amused.

"Remind me never to agree to a compromise you broker," he said. I shrugged. Thor could have said no to his dad. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Steve leave for the roof deck, followed by Tony. A couple months ago, we put some decorative plants up there, a table and chairs on the grass covering, and a railing around the perimeter; plans to put a grilling area were in the offing. For some reason, Tony wanted a croquet set too. I wasn't spending much time there; it was summer, and I don't like the heat much anymore.

"I wonder if I should tell Loki or let his brother do it," I said, and Bruce and I discussed. We heard a thud above us.

"Sounds like they're fighting," Bruce observed, not moving. "You should go up and break it up."

"Why me?"

"They listen to you."

"They listen to you too."

"When I'm green." Which was not really the point, but I could tell he was feeling immovable. I sighed, feeling like the world's biggest busybody, and dragged myself up the stairs.

I sighed again when I stepped out on the grass. Tony had Steve down and his arm ready to punch.

"Hey!" I barked. They looked at me, Steve had one black eye already and Tony was enraged. I took an inadvertent step back. I've seen him mad, defensive, sarcastic, peeved, petulant, but never like this.

"Go ahead, tell her," Tony snarled at him, releasing him, getting up and stomping over to the railing. Steve sat up.

"T'Challa is coming for a visit," Steve said, touching his eye and wincing. I nodded. "He wants to bring Bucky."

"What? Why is he in Wakanda?"

"He's been in cryo since Germany," Steve said. "But T'Challa says they've fixed him. The Wakandans contacted the military--since Bucky was on one of our missions when he fell, he's still under their authority--and they had a court martial."

"What's there to fix? What happened in the court martial? Why hasn't it been bigger news?"

"Well, his arm," Steve hedged. "His bionic arm was ripped off." I winced. "And he was conditioned." He explains how Red Skull's toady scientist Zola had treated Bucky with the Super Soldier serum before his rescue, his fall from a train in the mountains, his recovery and brainwashing and his eventual career as a super assassin, the code words that triggered him. "The court martial heard all the evidence, read Bucky's service record, the notes that SHIELD was able to retrieve from HYDRA on their Super Soldier program, heard from the Wakandan scientists that treated Bucky. They determined that his actions hadn't been his fault, and cleared him of all charges of treason. They did for him what they did for me, updated his service record, gave him an honorable discharge from the Army. With back pay, but that will take time to get straightened out. It just ended. I went over with Natasha--" I nodded; a couple weeks ago, they'd taken some personal leave "and gave testimony. The court martial just concluded, and he's being permitted to return to the States. There'll be a press release soon."

"What kind of conditioning?" I asked, puzzled, and Steve explained how he was defrosted, activated, sent on a mission, and refrozen over decades. Mind wiped whenever his conditioning started to break down, which was frequent. I winced. What a sucky life. T'Challa's people have, they believe, done the work that removed his conditioning and provided some intensive therapy.

"Well, if you want, I can help with the work on his arm," I offered. "And we've got room in the residence for more people, that's for sure."

"Tell her!" Tony hissed.

"Well, remember he was an assassin. He was given his jobs, he's always been an ace shot, he was a sniper on the Commandos, his conditioning didn't permit him to resist and he couldn't turn down a job. Whenever he tried to say no, he was abused." He swallowed. "He--one of his jobs. One of his jobs was to retrieve a batch of trial Super Soldier serum and kill the couriers."

"Super Sol--wait. That program was disbanded in the 80's. Too many failures, death and disability. Where did they come up with serum? The research said the serum was unstable as hell. When was this mission?"

"It was newly created at the time," Tony whispered. "The work had continued past when the military officially ended the program, just secretly." I looked from one man to the other, getting a bad feeling about this.

Steve visibly steeled himself. "The courier was Howard Stark. Bucky killed him and his wife and took the serum."

My legs folded and I sat down on the grass fast. "Mr Stark?" I whispered. I whipped a disbelieving glance over to Tony, but his face was set in bitter lines, fury still in his eyes. I felt tears prickle. "He killed Mr Stark?"


	3. Come on, this has to be rock bottom

"No," I said, shaking my head. "Mr Stark wouldn't have done that. Wouldn't have continued the Super Soldier program. He knew what the risks to the individuals were. He told us what they were," I said, gaining confidence. "He said that the last trials were inhumane."

"Oh, would you stop?" Tony turned on me. "He was no saint, despite what you want to believe. You know he rarely let anything drop that could turn a profit, and a viable serum would have made a lot of money. He stuffed the Super Soldier program in the Weapons division. The subjects were studied, after, in Division O. As were other mutants--some of the scientists were mutated, like you, in accidents or as a result of their work. Do you remember Lester Grierson?" I nodded dumbly; he'd been in plastics during my rotation there. All of a sudden he retired; feelings were kind of hurt because we didn't get a chance to send him off, and he was only in his early 50s. "His work in plastics apparently mutated his skin like yours was, only his skin was inflexible. He ended up literally unable to move his muscles, couldn't sweat, couldn't eat too much at a meal or gain any weight. He ended up in O. Probably fortunately for him, he died soon after; he had cancers grow that they couldn't treat on top of all that. The only reason you weren't stuck in O when you asked for help is because your mutation is nothing compared to that. My father knew about what they did there, all the testing, and they tried to reproduce the more useful mutations. He encouraged it, for useful results. I looked at the company records; the Super Soldier program was continued in secret once it was officially closed because if they could reproduce the successful formula it would have been extremely lucrative. SHIELD and or the military would have paid whatever price he asked in order to make supersoldiers that actually respected the chain of command." He glared at Steve.

It was too much to take in. I shook my head reflexively. "Your accident was no accident," Stark continued, still enraged. "Steiger"--my old nemesis in the lab, that little weasel--"got a hold of Grierson's medical records, duplicated the mutagen to the best of his ability, and paid that asshole to dump it on you. You thought the guy was fired with you, but he wasn't. He went back to work as soon as Steiger ended up promoted to Deputy Chief of Division O, some four months later. You're lucky the Asgardians were able to treat you. Point is, my dad made all that possible. And if you'd mutated while he was around, he still would have locked you up in O, knowing what would be done to you. He might have visited, but he wouldn't have let you go until every milligram of information had been squeezed out of you. Because it might be useful down the road. He was all about the business and the profits, my dad," he said bitterly. "You weren't as special as you thought you were. You were just like performing monkeys he had a fondness for. You produced results." He pulled out his phone, poked around, and produced a projection of security footage of the lab. I saw myself, concentrating on my project, Steiger looked at me and nodded at the other guy, who picked up the tray, started toward me. The 'accident.' Then security footage, older, Mr Stark and a couple of guys I didn't recognize in an observation room, going through results of some testing on Super Soldier serum victims. He was irritated about a lot of things, swearing and complaining, including the lack of progress in eliminating lesser mutations, but felt that the latest formulation could be made to work. The time stamp was days before his death. I didn't want to see more; I got to my feet, moving quickly down the stairs, leaving the third floor without stopping, going out into the woods until I needed to stop. My dogs found me sometime later.

I returned, reluctantly, to the housing complex after dark, sick at heart, too upset to eat or think straight. At some point, I went to sleep. I woke up late the next morning to a faceful of fur; Torburn had curled around my head like a hat and his tail was draped over my nose and mouth.

After I extracted myself from the dogs, the first thing I did was to get the ring Mr Stark had given us--the ones we thought made us part of something special--and threw it into the recycling. Then I changed my mind and put it in the trash. It didn't deserve to be reused. I took a shower, my mind starting to move again. If Steiger tried to replicate the mutagen that killed Grierson, that might mean that the current resurgence of my mutation was merely the harbinger of things to come. Jesus, I hadn't even considered the possibility of cancers. I threw some clothes on, not bothering with makeup or grooming past pulling my hair into a pony tail, and went to see Nick.

I told him about Rogers and Stark fighting on the rooftop over Bucky and what Stark had revealed to me. "I need those medical records," I said grimly. He nodded.

"Stark and Rogers looked me up last night and explained what had happened; I told him to get me everything his company still has on that man--medical records, everything, without telling him what you told me about your changing condition. It will all be here in a day or two. I told him to be thorough, and sent him to collect it all himself. I saw that little package Stark put together; he did it after that first lunch. Howard Stark is still a sore subject with him, and you're the best target he has for his frustrations. It's true that the military stopped funding the Super Soldier project because the results didn't begin to approach what had been achieved with Rogers, and it's also true that SHIELD kept funding the project afterward. But after several years of infighting, it was determined that if the serum didn't produce a perfect specimen like Rogers, the program would be wrapped up. It was that serum delivery that Howard was making when he was killed. I personally don't think it would have worked much better. I've come around to the viewpoint that Rogers is an anomaly. That serum and that individual. The fact that two superpowers could never truly replicate the results despite throwing a lot of effort and money trying supports that. Bucky might be another exception, except physically, his transformation wasn't as extreme. As for realistically judging his other abilities, that's difficult because he's spent so much time on ice. I want your opinion; Rogers wants to have T'Challa bring his friend here, possibly to join the Avengers. What do you think?"

"I'm too tired to care," I said honestly. "But if it's true, really true, that he couldn't fight his conditioning, then I can't in good conscience say he shouldn't come. If he was a victim, he shouldn't be punished for it."

Nick tipped his head. "And how are you feeling about Stark? Father and son," he clarified.

"The son can go rot somewhere warm and wet," I say with as much heat as I can muster. I paused. "It's harder to adjust my thinking about the father, though." I had no intention of telling Nick how upset I was, crushed and furious and sick, hearing about what Mr Stark had done. I'd thought he was a better man than that. And I didn't mind the idea that Tony would be goaded every time he saw Bucky.

Nick nodded in consideration. "For what it's worth, you might want to remember that Tony is still angry about his relationship with his father when you consider his comments. I don't know the whole truth, and Howard Stark could be quite an asshole, but I do know that he was proud of your group and took mentoring you seriously. One time, before we could get down to business, he made us listen to a story about how he was bidding on some desalination plants for a government contract and how your group had to redo some testing for some component and it got done just under the wire. He said that you had been the lynchpin, working around the clock to get it done. He praised your willingness to work hard when it counted, your ease under pressure, your concentration and your skill."

I remembered that. We'd been working on a membrane for the plant, but the prototype was late in being returned to us for testing, so it had been all hands on deck for close to twenty hours. None of the computers in any of the labs were hooked up to what passed for the internet those days or even an intranet, for security reasons. We rushed the printouts up to Mr Stark with a couple hours to spare, which was just enough time to courier them down to the agency, beating the deadline. The next day, Mr Stark had surprised us with a party, cake and champagne. Helium balloons that he'd filled himself from the tanks in one of the labs. I smiled slightly before remembering that Mr Stark's actions were tainted. "The membrane didn't even make it into production," I said. "Too expensive to produce." I shrugged. "Too bad, it was kick ass. But maybe one day, the cost will come down enough to use." I considered the impact of the story on me, personally. What I remembered the most wasn't the last-minute work, that had happened on other occasions as well, but needing to perform high-level work with my companions, doing it well, and succeeding. Mr Stark had popped in several times to watch our progress, encouraging us, adding to the gestalt. The team effort, that's what had mattered. And it wasn't just a possible multi-million dollar contract that kept Mr Stark coming down; he valued the process and experience too. We all saw that if he knew more about what we were doing, he would have rolled up his sleeves and jumped in to help.

"And I don't believe that he would have abandoned you in that mutant research division, no matter what Tony says," he said with finality. "That story put you on SHIELD's radar, but he refused to bring you in, said that you were too black and white for the business, which requires that you see things in shades of gray. Said you wouldn't play ball, it would be the ruin of you. The other founders weren't pleased, particularly Director Carter, who wanted more women brought in. I understand that this has been upsetting, but frankly, you look like shit. You need to go and eat. Didn't you say that your Asgardian doctor said you're too thin? I'm willing to make it an order that you eat regularly and take care of yourself if I have to; the clinic will stuff you like a goose if they have to." I glared at him. "Stark will bring all the records relating to whatshisname--Grierson--to medical and they will study them, take samples from you, and do their thing. It is too early to panic. Haven't we just been discussing how hard it is to replicate mutations? So you take a few days off. I understand there's some kind of party being planned for Thor's return with Sif, so you could help organize that. Make sure it's not too...whatever."

I stared at him, stunned by his revelations. "I would prefer to do some work. Besides, don't we have a party planner?"

"This is for one of our own," Nick said sternly. "We should put forth the effort."

"We?"

"I'm delegating. Now, get out of my office and do your thing." I left and went to the caf, feeling better about things in general, but kind of disbelieving about Nick's story. But tamping down the panic I still felt about the returning mutation. Nick was right, there wasn't a point to panicking right now. Data first, panic later. It was my scientific method. Plus at some point I would need to talk to the healers on Asgard, but to do that most effectively, I would need all the relevant medical records and it wouldn't hurt to see what our team could do first. I ate as much lunch as I could stand, then found Natasha, who filled me in on the plans that were in place so far. She rolled her eyes at Nick's insistence that we do things ourselves.

"Maria's coming in to help. She used to work for SHIELD but now she's Stark's right-hand woman," she told me. "The rest of us can blow up balloons or something." I grinned at her.

"I'll contact the store room manager," I volunteered. "He does the ordering for all the labs. He can order a tank of regular helium for us."

"Why can't we use what's already here?"

"Because that is highly purified and really expensive. Helium is getting really scarce, though. Maybe we should do something else."

"You're the geek," she said lightly, and we talked about maybe flowers instead. She paged Scott, Wanda and Vision, and we took a fact-finding field trip to a sought-after Seattle florist to talk about table centerpieces and a bouquet of flowers for their room. 

After dinner, we split up, and I went downstairs, sagging into the visitors chair. It had been upgraded the prior month to an armchair for comfort. Loki looked at me alertly.

"Well, your brother has gotten married," I told him, and he burst out laughing. I filled him in on what else I knew, which was precious little. "I don't know if Thor plans to tell you himself of he figures I'll do it, but you might want to act surprised if the situation calls for it. I don't want to step on any toes." He agreed, then after a moment, asked what's really bothering me, and I found myself giving the Readers Digest version of my problems. He was silent a moment.

"Well, for once I have nothing to say," he said finally, his smooth voice soothing. "You cannot plan without information. Would you like to view a movie?" I get up, pop a couple single-serve bags of popcorn, carefully stuffing one through the wall slot to Loki, popping Loki's movie choice into the disk player, and I curl up as Loki brings up the inspired lunacy of Galaxy Quest. I quickly explain science fiction fandom to him, and settle in to watch the adventures of Jason Nesmith and his typecast fellow actors. I'm smiling as Alexander Dane berates Nesmith for not being serious about the craaahft when the door opens. I look over to see Cap in the doorway, and the smile fades away. He doesn't say anything, just draws up a less comfortable chair and sits down. Loki and I exchange a glance, and then we go back to watching the movie. When the movie ends, I tell Loki good night and leave, Cap at my heels.


	4. I've got lots of company on the rocks, but there's no booze

The night air felt cool and refreshing. The dogs were waiting outside, breaking off pursuit of some undoubtedly terrified critter to greet me. Sigurd looked from Cap to me, and pointedly put himself between us as we walked. Torburn marched ahead.

"Spit it out, Steve," I said wearily.

"I want to apologize for what happened last night. I wasn't planning on telling you like that; Tony's known about how his father was killed for awhile and I didn't expect him to go off like that."

"Tony's not the most emotionally stable Avenger," I note dryly. "I think only Bruce's alter ego is worse, and even there, it's pretty one note."

Steve shrugs in agreement. "I had no idea he had that information about you, the recordings. Are you ok?"

I stop. "Not really," I say. "The news about Mr Stark was upsetting. I don't like having my nose rubbed in the fact that my mentor wasn't perfect, but fundamentally...it's gong to take some time for me to adjust my feelings. I know what Mr Stark did for me in employing me, working with me and teaching me. He did things that are morally questionable at best, and that's something I'll have to think through later. But the onus now is on his son. He's apparently let the research go on, and it sounded like it's...not good at all. He's apparently still employing that scum Steiger, knowing what he's capable of."

"Tony went personally to collect the information on the first man who had the skin thing," Steve assured me.

"Nick said he ordered him to do it," I said sternly. "It's not out of the goodness of his artificially stabilized little heart."

"You talked to Fury?" I nodded. "But the mutation isn't nearly as bad for you," he said encouragingly. "The Asgardians took care of it, anyway."

"Except they didn't," the words exploded from me. "It's coming back, and it's more extensive this time. It's affecting the muscles too." I blinked hard and bit my lip firmly to keep from blubbering.

Steve stopped, so I did, and because I did, the dogs did too. "I didn't realize," he said slowly. "You found out when you took Thor back?"

"Yep. They always do a scan to check. We didn't think it was that big a deal, but now...it's kind of terrifying. I don't know how far it will go."

After a pause, Steve offered tentatively, "But there were those years when you were down South where it was stable. The mutation might have just responded to the attempt to eradicate it. It might have just made itself a little more difficult to treat again. It doesn't mean that what happened to Grierson will happen to you." I nod.

"That's what they think on Asgard," I say finally. "But that was without the new information."

"The mutation doesn't care about information," Steve reminded me. "It just...is. It does its thing. And it sounds like it's thing is to be pretty stable." We started to walk again.

"OR maybe it would have gotten worse anyway, just more slowly over time. I 'm trying not to get too worked up about it until I know more," I said. "Plus I have to conserve my energy. I'll have to deal with Stark soon, and Thor, too. He's not going to be happy with me." I explain my conversation with Odin briefly. "But he's a big boy, he could have told his father no, that he was going to do his thing, or agreed to live up to his responsibilities. But Thor likes his prestige as Thor, Odinson, high and mighty of Asgard, footloose and fancy free." My voice was a little irritated. "He wants things to be easy."

"Don't we all?" Steve said mildly.

"Yeah, I think everybody would like that, but most of us understand that it isn't possible. There are always consequences for doing the easy thing over the right thing, and leaving other people to clean up your mess isn't right." Steve quirked an eyebrow at me, and ahead, Torburn jumped up to snap at a moth. He was so big it was easy to forget he was still a puppy. 

I tried to remember if there was a reason lately Steve might think I was being hypocritical but couldn't think of anything. "By the way, if Bucky really was conditioned so thoroughly he was incapable of consent, then I'm ok with him coming here if that conditioning has been erased. If things have been straightened out with the government, this is probably the safest place for him. It would be easier to rehabilitate his image with the support of the Avengers."

"Really?" Steve asked, and I nodded.

"Just...be sensible, Steve. I know this is an opportunity to help your best friend, maybe pay him back for all the ways he helped you when you were growing up. But he's not that guy anymore. He might have the memories but his experiences since he fell from the train are probably going to prevent him from ever being that guy again. He's only had bits and pieces of a life since. And he's going to have a lot to deal with, including resentment for you," I said as gently as I could. "You were both given the serum, but you volunteered. It was done as safely as possible, and you had clear goals. Bucky was not a volunteer, I doubt very much if his health and safety was given any consideration at any point in his treatment by Red Skull or HYDRA. You ended up a hero. He's a nightmare. You've always acted according to your conscience. He hasn't had that luxury. He's always been the protector. Now the roles are reversed, largely, and he might resent that too. I don't know the guy at all, just what I've heard about him. But my point is that right now, you don't know him anymore, either. And you've got to be prepared for that. I don't think it's possible to overestimate how damaged he is."

Steve didn't say anything. "You might want to find him a therapist," I offered. "Somebody he can talk to who won't have any expectations." I paused, and decided to throw a friend of mine under the bus. "I know a woman from college who's a therapist; she helped me adjust after my accident. She's really good at her job and she's also a good person. I could contact her, see if she'd be willing to work with Bucky. She's in New Jersey, so he'd have to go see her, or they could possibly Skype."

"Please," Steve said after a pause. "Bucky might not be able to come here, and he'll need somebody. Fury will be talking to the team about it later this week; I think he's waiting for Thor to show up. Nothing's been decided yet. And he'll need an arm; he hasn't replaced the one that was torn off in the fight with Stark."

"Stark ripped off his arm?" I said, too loudly. Asshole.

Steve shushes me, stops, and explains. About the snowy wastes of Russia, Zemo's plan to make the Avengers defeat themselves, the devastating fight. Holy shit. I rub my forehead and hand him a dollar.

"What's this for?" he asks, puzzled.

"I just swore in my head. Ok, so once he decides what he's looking for in an arm, I can get to work. As long as it isn't impossible, he can probably have whatever he wants. I can make the arm, but as far as the bio part of the biomechanics, he's going to need a specialist. And you guys..." I look at him and shake my head. "This guy Zemo really did a number on you, and it's still resonating. And there were more Winter Soldiers? Jesus." At Steve's wince, I pull out more money and shove a few bills at him. The implications of what he's told me about Zemo and the Winter Soldier and Tony and Steve and the Avengers is hitting me now. "It's a literal miracle that things have been patched over so well, but my god, those patches are breathtakingly thin." I shove the rest of the bills at him, being proactive; I usually don't carry money around, but I'd bought some flowers for my workshop and a plant for my room when we were at the florist.

"Here. Just take my money, because I'm really freaking out here and I can't keep track. Ok, so first of all, we need to make the system by which we engage the super bad guys better. Some communications with the government of the area, so they can at least evacuate the field of engagement. We can't work under something like the Sokovia Accord, but if we are more willing to work with the authorities, it will help to stabilize our intervention and publicly demonstrate that we aren't the bad guys, that we're really there to help. That will be more effective than the center down the street that we opened." I start talking faster. "We're seeing a rise in altered humans or just those with awesome tech because the Avengers made it ok to come out of the closet. And if baddies want to succeed, they've got to be bigger and badder than us, so we REALLY need to do more with our non-lethal alternatives, and we've got to highlight or new direction for people. We need to show we care about the people we're trying to protect. It's easier for a smart person who's lost everything to plan revenge if they don't think we care." I start to shuffle around.

"Jesus. Jesus, Jesus. I can't say that I liked Mrs Stark the few times I met her, she always looked at us like we were manky actual lab rats, but I guess Tony loved her and to find out that the parent he loved who reciprocated and the one he always clashed with were offed by the same guy who just happened to be the best friend of your biggest rival was a huge shock, of course it was, and to have that exploited so brutally, well, I can't even imagine." I paused and sucked in a huge breath. "Ok, then god, and he tried to make you choose between him and the Avengers and Bucky and you chose Bucky, no surprise, so that's just something else that adds to the chip on his shoulder when you walked away and left your shield. And you broke everybody out of that horrible prison, and what is being done about General Ross? That man is not a good guy. And, Jesus, Tony needs help. He wants to help so much, but he thinks he can throw resources at a problem to solve it and of course that's not always the best way to solve a problem so it frequently doesn't work." I find I'm pacing in small circles. "I mean, seriously, you can't buy your way out of everything, which he tends to forget because it works with some problems, but when it gets emotional, money is never the answer, you know? He should know it more than anybody because he always lets his emotions cloud his judgment and he trips himself up, and he has the worst collection of pyrrhic victories I've ever seen, and it all seems to just drive him onto bigger and worse fuckups, cyclically. He's turning into the most tragic hero ever."

"So I'm a tragic hero, am I? Fuck you," Stark snaps, interrupts me, stepping out of the shadows.

I scuttle over to him and give him a hug. "Yeah. You're a grown man, so act like it. Deal with your damage rather than letting it damage you more, and everybody else around you. You're a king-sized jackass, a pressure-cooker waiting to go boom, and it's really really not good. Do you really think your mom would have wanted to see you like this? Yeah, I get that she's dead and we'll never know, but surely she would have wanted you to grow into your great potential rather than squander it on resentment and bitterness." Then I remember I'm mad at him and why, and I punch him right in the breadbasket.

"What was that for?" he groans, folding around his stomach.

"It's for the extra-special video package, asshole!" I shouted, trying to shake out the tingling from the mutating cells in my hands; I was experiencing it less frequently now. Maybe Steve had a point. "You knew all that since at least that horrible lunch and you never told me! You waited until it would hurt me most to tell me all that stuff! And Steiger still works for you, you termite!" The adrenaline rush snakes away and I have to restrain my urge to kick. "And we're not friends, but I thought that at least we were developing a relationship not based on mutual loathing. But that's not it at all. You must really hate me to do something like that." I couldn't even think of a swear word vile enough, and spun around and headed for the residence block. The dogs hurried to flank me.


	5. What do you do when somebody isn't willing to give an inch?

The next morning, a response from my therapist friend was waiting. If she could be assured that Bucky's conditioning had in fact been eliminated as a safety measure, she would certainly be open to working with him. She also told me to be in touch more often than when I needed a favor. She was right about that. I also had a notice from the medical staff saying they wanted to see me, so after a hearty breakfast, I went to see them. They were in receipt of the materials related to poor Les, and they took biopsies of my skin tissue and muscles for study. That part wasn't so much fun, but I was reassured that they were also preparing to do genetic analysis to see how the DNA in the skin and muscles were being affected. It was very helpful that the reversion to impermeable skin wasn't complete and there were enough areas in varying degrees of reversion that a complete analysis should be very helpful. Stark had managed to even recover some of poor Les's tissue samples, and the comparison would be valuable.

On my way out, feeling a little disgruntled from the sample-taking, I ran into Natasha and Bruce, coming home from a run around the property. She looked quite sprightly still, but Bruce was all in. She waved when they saw me, and Bruce promptly bent over to try to get his breath back. "Fury wants to see you in his office," she said.

"I feel like I'm being sent to the principal's office," I said, only half-joking.

"What's going on with Tony and Steve?" Bruce wheezed. "You came down looking like hell, they came down later, not speaking, and Steve had a black eye."

They'd be told about it soon, so I told them about the Bucky issue. Natasha nodded when I told them that Steve had known about Bucky's assassination of Mr and Mrs Stark. "We were on the run, down in a HYDRA bunker, talking to a very weird guy who had died of cancer but had been somehow transferred to all these old-fashioned computers," she said, shuddering. "Disquieting. He was baiting Steve, talking about HYDRA assassinations, and in the images he was putting up were newspaper clippings of the Stark's deaths and a picture of Bucky. I wondered if he put it all together."

"I miss newspapers," Bruce said, still getting his wind back. I looked at him in concern, which he waved off. "I guess Steve wanted to see if you guys would kill Bucky on sight before making arrangements. What do you think?" he asked, slowly straightening up.

I thought about it. "I think, that if the conditioning was as extensive as advertised--"

"It was," Natasha interjected, and I accepted her assessment.

"Then I really can't blame him."

"I gather Tony doesn't see it the same way," Bruce observed, and I gave a half-laugh.

"No. Or rather, he might logically understand it if he wanted to, and he doesn't, but it was his parents who were killed, and Stark isn't the best at managing his emotions."

Bruce chuckled. "Bit of an understatement."

"He's not wrong to be furious about the assassination. That's something everybody can agree with. I just think it's misplaced. It's blaming the tool rather than the wielder. I think Nick is going to talk to the group once Thor shows up, or in a few days," I said. "This can't wait forever. T'Challa's coming, and I understand he wants to bring Bucky with him." I waited as Natasha and Bruce saw the implications. "So there's that to consider as well. I hope that T'Challa will talk to Tony. He and Tony and that bad guy, whatshisname--Zemo? Zeno?--all lost family because of the same root cause--superpowered people." I stop and shake my head. "Stark is at a tipping point at this moment. He could become like that guy who split the Avengers or he could become like T'Challa. I worry that he's going to choose to become like Zima."

"Zemo," Bruce said, snorting a laugh. I waved off the correction.

"Point is, I don't think it would take much to turn him to the dark side," I said seriously. "Somebody with a good grasp of the psychology, able to exploit Stark's weaknesses and anger and vulnerabilities could have him packed up really quickly."

"That's an interesting way to put it," Bruce said, sobering. "I really don't wanna have to hunt him down some time."

"I don't want to push people to pick a side, but you should know what's coming up so you can make your own decision," I said, and left, trudging up to Nick's office. Sigurd waited outside in the hall, but Torburn came inside with me. Nick raised an eyebrow, but I shrugged. "Think of him as a therapy dog," I suggested, and Torburn's big brown eyes shone as he sat down, trying to look helpful and official. Nick's mouth turned up.

"I'm going to call Rogers and Stark in for a little conference, but I wanted to talk to you first. Stark showed up last night with the records."

I nodded. "Yeah, I've already been to the clinic this morning." I was proud that I'd beaten him to the punch. 

"Good," he said approvingly. "I'd like to ask you some questions about last night." He probably had cameras all over the grounds. I shrugged. "So what happened? It looks pretty odd."

I started by saying I'd watched a movie with Loki and how Steve had apologized for the incident on the roof. "Then that led to Steiger, and I told him what was going on with my skin again. We talked about how Bucky will have changed--I don't think that he's really thought about what he's been through and what it means for his personality. He's spent time with him action-packed moments, not really good conditions for getting to know him again, and I wanted to be sure he'd at least consider what the impact for their future friendship might be. Then he told me what happened in Siberia and I kind of freaked out. The Winter Guard? Five super soldiers scarier even than the Winter Soldier? That was bad enough, but to hear how Zemo had studied them, seen how to bring the team down so keenly..." I shivered. "And it could still happen."

Nick grinned. "That looked entertaining, even if it wasn't."

The door opened as he was talking, and Stark and Steve walked in. Stark took the seat on the other end and pulled it out of position. "It kind of was," Steve said, settling down into the middle chair. He gave me some bills. "Ten curse words and the one in your thoughts were deducted and put in the swear jar," he said. I choked down a laugh and put the money in my pocket. "She had some good points about working out a better communication system with countries where we operate, so maybe they can help clear out areas where we're chasing bad guys. Also a publicity campaign about how we're working with non-lethal and less destructive tools." He looked at me fast. "It's easier for a smart person to plan revenge when they don't think we care. And that we need to do something about Secretary Ross, we can't get rid of him, but maybe we could get a lobbyist" he spat the word almost "to influence people, blunt his effectiveness and influence."

"And who's going to pay for that?" Snark snapped. "I suppose you want me--"

"I'd be happy to take care of this one," I said pleasantly, raising my voice over Stark's slightly. "I don't think we want money that can be publicly tied to the Avengers in this. I have a friend from college--"

"Another one?" Steve murmured, and I reached over and smacked his arm. It was like hitting a punching bag.

"Who is a lobbyist for civil liberties," I continued. "She might be willing to work with us on this; it's no secret that Ross isn't exactly a friend of civil rights."

"I'll keep that in mind," Nick said mildly. "It's something that we need to think about."

"I'm surprised that you're willing to go along with this," Stark sniped at Steve.

"It's not oversight that's on the table, Tony," Steve explained levelly. "It's communication, which is essential on the battlefield."

"That's enough," Nick interjected before Stark could respond. "I've asked you here so we can discuss the thorny problem of the Winter Soldier."

"I don't want him here," Stark said immediately. "He's an assassin."

"So is Natasha," I said calmly.

"We don't need another one, then. He's probably unstable." I just gave him a pointed look; Barnes probably was, but he wasn't the only one around here. Stark bared his teeth.

"You don't want him here because he killed your parents," Steve said quietly.

"Would you?" Stark snapped.

"Nobody's denying it's difficult to get past that," Nick stated. "And if Barnes had acted freely, it wouldn't be an issue. But he wasn't."

"I don't care," Stark said mulishly. "He killed my mom." Steve looked down.

"He did," I agreed. "But he was used as a tool. His wasn't the mind behind it. I believe that everybody deserves a second chance. Tony, hasn't anybody given you a second chance before?" I asked gently.

"It's not the same thing!" he exploded.

"The parents of Wanda and her brother were killed by a Stark Industries weapon, spent hours looking at your name on the side of one, waiting to die. They were willing to give up their revenge and work with you," I said softly. "Everybody's made mistakes. Some are bigger than others. I'm sorry I hit you last night." I looked at Nick. "Regardless of what the Avengers decide, he's an American veteran of WWII who suffered more than most in service to his country. I don't know about how much his status with the military was straightened out, but he was experimented on when he was a POW, extensively after he was recaptured, and lost his arm when he was in the Howling Commandos, and the Army absolved him from responsibility. I'm going to help rebuild his arm and I'm going to help get him on his feet. Let me know if I need to take a leave of absence or something. Tony, I'm not going to tell you to forget what happen, but I am going to ask that you recognize what was done to that man and give him a second chance. Do it for you." Stark regarded me, eyes sparking.

"Were you sleeping with my dad?" he asked. "Is that why you got special treatment?" I was so mad at this accusation, which I'd debunked before, and his attitude--it's not like any of this was news to him, he'd had time to come to grips with it--hat I couldn't see straight. In two strides I reached him and backhanded him with all my strength. Then there was a blur as Torburn went for him but I managed to pull him off before he'd done more than drool on Stark as he bayed for his blood. 

"You don't have to believe me when I tell you that I'd never sleep with a married man, but you insult your dad by thinking he'd have screwed around on your mom," I said furiously, hanging onto Torburn's harness with difficulty. Yuck. It would have been gross. "Get a fucking grip."

"I don't think a disembowelment is effective therapy," Nick observed as I wrestled Torburn toward the door. I shot him a withering glare and I shoved the door closed with my foot. I heard Nick yelling at Stark, but I had my own problems, Sigurd was mad too, growling with a nasty edge. Thank heaven it had been Torburn in there and not Sigurd; I couldn't have pulled him off Stark.

With difficulty, I urged both dogs into the elevator and sagged against the wall; I just wasn't up to herding them down the stairs. We went outside and I collapsed on the grass, staring at the clouds in the sky; it looked like we might get some rain. After I calmed down some, I found a stick and threw it for the pups; soon they were back to their usual sunny moods. Sigurd was allowing Torburn to tow him around a little in his quest to gain possession of the stick and I was laughing when the Bifrost light shot down to the usual spot. Torburn trotted over, proudly in possession of the stick, followed by his tolerant father, and together we went over to greet Thor and Sif.

Thor greeted me like normal, which was a relief as it meant he wasn't too mad at me. "Sif will be dividing her time between here and Asgard," he said, and I smiled at her.

"Congratulations on your marriage," I said. Thor smiled and turned away to greet the dogs. "Nick had Thor's things moved to a bigger suite, Lady Sif," I said. "It hasn't really been decorated; we've got a decorator to work with if you'd like to change things to suit yourself." She seemed nervous, and I couldn't really blame her. She'd had some big changes lately and was now living on a strange planet away from everyone and everything she'd known. "I'm sure that Thor will show you around, but if you have any questions, please feel free to ask me, or anybody, actually." I turned toward the residence block and we walked over slowly, making conversation as I showed them to their suite, Thor trailing along with their luggage. It was the biggest one we had. "We've got a party planned for you, we just weren't sure when you'd arrive," I let them know, smiling. The dogs nuzzled up to Sif, who was happy to provide ear skritches. "Thor, there's a bit of an uproar around here, you might want to check in with Nick. "

"Oh?" Thor asked, frowning at me.

"Yeah, it's kind of a mess." I couldn't keep from rubbing my forehead.

"Are you unwell?" he asked.

"I'm fine, it's just a headache. Stark was being unacceptable, I smacked him and had to pull Torburn off him."

"Much has happened," Thor said meditatively. He ended up going off and I showed Sif around the campus instead. We encountered Sam at one point on his way to the gym, then Scott, then Natasha, who took over as tour guide. We ended up in the cafeteria for a late lunch, and by the time that we returned her to her suite, she seemed more relaxed and happier. Natasha proposed the party for the next day, and Sif seemed pleased at the effort. Natasha left to put the plans into motion, and the dogs and I went downstairs. As I walked over to the sofa, Sigurd woofed, and I looked over to see him standing by the overturned trashcan. He woofed again and pushed something toward me. I came over, righted the trashcan and threw a few pieces of paper in it, then looked at what he had under his paw. It was my Acolyte's ring. He'd fished it out for me. I knelt down and hugged him, his fur soft under my chin. His nose was wet as he nuzzled me. I sniffed, then got up to put the ring away.

Then I turned on the computer and Googled how to to negotiate, and how to work with someone who is too stubborn to leave an entrenched position. I sighed as I read. We were in for a long, difficult haul.


	6. Finally, a cease fire

Before I went to bed, I chatted with my friend again, giving her the general context of Bucky and explaining what the trouble was here. As I'd expected, she had some helpful suggestions for me, and I clicked off Skype feeling a lot better.

The next morning, the pups bolted their breakfast and went outside to play while I selected a hearty breakfast from the buffet. I was reflecting on the previous night's conversation when I felt a hand on the nape of my neck. I looked up, startled, to see Steve with his plate. I waved at the other chairs at the table. "Have a seat."

"I wasn't sure if you'd want to talk after last night," he said, sitting down, then standing again. "Forgot my coffee. Can I bring you anything?" I still had an almost full mug of coffee, so I asked for orange juice. While I waited, I crunched my way through a piece of thick-cut bacon. So good.

"I had a conversation with my therapist friend last night," I told him when he'd started eating. "Both to give her some background about Bucky's situation and to get some insight about the situation here." Steve looked up, surprised and attentive. "She had an idea that I'd like to run past you, suggesting that he do his initial therapy in New York rather than coming here and doing it remotely. It might be easier for him to work through everything he's experienced on his own. I think it would serve two purposes, actually: one, making his transition from Winter Soldier to an autonomous person easier, and second, easing pressure here. There would be more time for consideration and deciding what to do. There's certainly the possibility that he might not want to join the Avengers, that he might want to choose an ordinary life," I said gently.

Steve poked his fork around his eggs. He didn't say anything. "I told Constance that I'd cover his bills and expenses," I said. "I don't know what his finances are like or even if HYDRA bothered to pay him anything, but I'm willing to ensure that he's got somewhere to live and funding while he does therapy and gets on his feet. Who knows how the Army will calculate his back pay and how long it will take to get to him? I've got more money than I know what to do with, thanks to Stark's ego and a great financial advisor, so I can afford it."

"Why would you do that?" Steve asked. "After all he's done."

I swallowed some juice. Fresh squeezed. There are definite advantages to being an Avenger. "Because he's important to you, and we're friends, so that makes it important to me. It's the same reason I've made an effort with Loki, because Thor's my friend, and why I'll make an effort with Sif. Why I haven't just crossed Stark off. Because we're more than friends, we're a kind of hugely dysfunctional family. It's the right thing to do; he's a veteran and he's been through enough. And frankly, it's good for me too. I've been really focused on myself for a long time, that dysfunction extends to me. But here's an opportunity to help someone with specific, substantial problems. The money isn't really important past the ability to get what I need, but here I can use my skills to rebuild an arm, make a real difference for somebody. A whole, functioning arm, which is something that had never crossed my mind. I don't really like blood, so I never wanted to be a doctor. But this I can do, help make this prosthetic. Maybe I can manage a sort of flesh tone to the metal so it blends a little better." I stop and ponder that. "Have to find out where he'd like to live," I mumble, starting to compile a list. "A house would probably be better than an apartment that has neighbors who might make a fuss. I wonder if he's got valid ID."

Steve cleared his throat and I looked at him. "Thanks."

I smiled a little and went back to breakfast. "This means that the pressure on Stark can be lowered and maybe then he can creep out of the corner he's backed himself into. Gives everybody some breathing room."

"I'll be talking to T'Challa after breakfast," Steve said.

"Great. Get his input on all this. He probably knows Bucky's state of mind pretty well right now. Also ask him if he can send me the specs for the arm? If I've got the measurements and schematics, I can start the work, maybe get it done by the time they get here, and then it will just be a matter of sticking it on and making sure it works." I gestured with my hands, demonstrating.

Steve started to laugh. "You're an...unusual woman."

"I'm weird. I know, you can say," I nodded. He laughed harder.

"Am I interrupting?" a voice snapped, and I rolled my eyes. It was Stark, with male-onset PMS.

"Yeah, but have a seat anyway," I said, gesturing to one of the other seats with a piece of melon on my fork. "Saves me the trouble of hunting you down later. Plans for Bucky are in abeyance for the foreseeable future, so you can calm down now."

"Are you helping him?" Stark stared at me.

"Yep." I ate the melon. Nice.

"Why? After all he's done--"

"After all you've done, I'm still trying to understand you and make allowances for you, rather than ripping out your arc reactor and walking away. As to why, I'm tired of focusing on my own problems. It's boring, not particularly useful, and the prospect of new challenges and helping somebody who has it worse than me is appealing."

Stark stared at me, his lip curling, then looked from me to Steve. "You're two peas in a pod, both of you so much better than the rest of us."

"Don't be an ass," I said, rolling my eyes, then barked a laugh. "Since that's not possible, try to be less of one," I said, anger and contempt getting the better of me. "In fact, unless it's for a group activity, stay the hell away from me. It's a lot easier for me to consider your viewpoints and work with them when you're not in my face insulting me. In fact, after yesterday, I'm amazed you have the gall to speak to me." The fury was bubbling up again.

"Emma," Steve said calmly, and looking where he was looking, I realized I'd folded my fork and the tines were stabbing my hand. And not going through. I unfolded the fork, smoothing it out again, and placed it on my plate.

"You're such a hypocrite," I hissed at Stark. "You're all furious that Steve withheld the information on your parents' assassination but you sat on that information about my mutation. You dug it up and sat on it until you could use it to hurt me. You continue to employ the men who were responsible, which is disgusting. It's a good thing that there are fans of Iron Man, because Tony Stark alienates people like nothing I've ever seen. You will never understand why people will want to help somebody like Bucky because that kind of compassion isn't in you, or if it is, it's drowned in the ocean of self-pity and entitlement you cultivate." I shoved my chair back and stomped out. Good that the dogs were off playing since I wasn't in the mood to pull them off Stark this time. I stomped all the way to my workshop.

The flowers I'd gotten in Seattle were wilting and dying; I had to throw them away. When I checked email, there was already a message from T'Challa with the specifications for the mechanical limb. He also said that the biomechanical parts were on their way so I could incorporate them when I was ready. My spirits lifted as I sifted through the information and made a list of supplies I'd need. I placed the order with my suppliers using my own accounts, then stood back from the table and stretched.

Then I went to find the head of the landscapers and explained what I wanted to do. He was enthusiastic and we went off to look at catalogs together. Then I borrowed a spade and went back to my workshop and started to dig some flowerbeds.

It was hard going, and by the time I had the grass removed for the first, smallest bed, I was ready to dramatically scale back the plans for the other ones, and if my skin was normal, I'd have had huge blisters on my hands. Right about then, three of the landscape crew showed up, laughed when I said I was just about to cut back, and took over competently. I retreated to my apartment where I took a long, relaxing shower. Then I went back to the caf, reluctantly, for a late lunch. I'd worked up an appetite. There was nobody I knew there, so lunch was certainly a happier occasion than breakfast had been.

After lunch, I helped our party-planning group plus Maria Hill, a ferociously competent woman, get ready for the evening's festivities. We set it up in the party room, where I inconspicuously added a dollar for the curse I'd said to Stark to the swear jar, and by the end, it looked nice, with a table ready for a buffet of appetizers and hors d'oeuvres, pretty flower arrangements everywhere, streamers and candles too, placed where the streamers and confetti were less likely to make contact with the burning candles. We had little packs of confetti for when we toasted the happy couple.

I groomed the dogs extensively and provided new collars for them, then took the dry cleaning bag off my dress for the evening and steamed out a few small wrinkles. I'd planned to wear a 50's style suit, slim skirt with a fitted top, three-quarter length sleeves and portrait collar, and gloves, but it was too loose still, so I went with my second choice, a really nice vintage knockoff of Dior's New Look. This one fit perfectly, and I curled my hair before pinning it in a messy knot at the nape of my neck. Evening makeup, pearl strand, diamond starburst earrings I'd bought on Etsy, then stepped into the crinoline before putting on the satin pumps. The midnight blue satin dress had a lovely sheen to it and the tone complemented my skin and set off my hair. I picked up my gift, and went over to the party, enjoying the sway of the skirt as I walked.

It had been difficult to come up with a wedding present for the gods who had everything, so in the end, I'd made one; his and her torcs. Thor's was appropriately large, having a nice weight to it but not being too heavy, ending in cabochon star sapphires. Sif's was lighter, smaller, with an elegant twist; the finials were roses, and I'd used fancy cut rhodolite garnets at their hearts. Making the torcs had been fun. Maybe once I got too old for making armor I could move over to jewelry.

I was early, but not the earliest; Natasha, Bruce, and Maria were also there, along with Thor and Sif. I gave them my gift before too many people showed up. I wasn't really sure they'd like them, but I think they did; Thor put his right on after examining the play of the sapphires. Sif of course had already chosen her accessories, but she seemed very pleased, and in relief I went to the bar, where Natasha, also in a lovely cocktail dress, was doing the honors as she flirted with Bruce, who alternated between enjoyment and shyness. It was cute. I put down water bowls for the dogs, who were hanging out by the guests of honor, and accepted a vodka martini with a lemon twist, not too dry. 

"You starting a sideline business?" Natasha asked.

I laughed. "No, but now I know what I can do in retirement."

Bruce scoffed. "I can't imagine you retired."

"Well, I'm not going to be able to make armor forever," I said practically. "And we all know I have no future in conflict mediation." That got some big laughs.

"Well, just so you know, I have a birthday coming up," Natasha said blandly.

"I also have a birthday," Maria put in.

"I don't think I could really rock a necklace," Bruce said wistfully, and we all laughed.

The party itself was nice and relaxing. I ignored Stark completely and he stayed out of my way. Everybody had come in for it, including Peter.

"This is really different from the parties I usually go to," he said as we were waiting our turn at the pool table.

"What do high schoolers do for fun these days?" I asked.

"It's mostly like hanging out, but with more people and booze if you can divert some from your parents, and dancing," he said. "I'm not really in the cool group."

"Don't see why not," I said, looking at him. "You're smart, funny, and cute." I laughed to myself as he squirmed a little. "I wasn't popular in high school either."

"No way," he said, and this time I laughed out loud.

"My friends and I were good girls," I said, thinking back to the days of neon and big hair in Reagan's America. "A little too rule-abiding to be cool, although it wasn't like we were outcasts, just not cool."

"You look too glamorous to be a geek," Scott said, joining us, and we grabbed Sam to play a game as teams.

"This is why it's good that high school is only four years," I deadpanned, and everybody laughed.

Later, I sat with Wanda and Vision on the sofas and Wanda put flowers from the vases in my hair as we talked about clothes and made plans to go shopping. Then it was time for a few Earth customs; we had a wedding cake for them--Tahitian vanilla and chocolate, fondant with a lacy piped design, raspberry coulis on the side--and champagne. I saw Peter try the wine and grinned at him. After some toasts--all of them tasteful, fortunately--we threw the confetti. This was the high point of the festivities, and afterward, the party died down. People started to drift away after then, and once everybody had gone, I picked up a bit, winding down. It had been a really good party and it looked like everybody had had fun. I wasn't cleaning up entirely; we had a housekeeping staff and I didn't want to seem like I didn't think they'd do their usual superb job, it just seemed rude to leave the mess. The food, with the exception of the cake, had been finished off, so I filled the dishwasher and got that started, rounded up the plates and glasses that remained, and vacuumed up the confetti. The pups didn't like that much and hopped around, yapping at the vacuum.

"That was a good party," Steve said from behind me, and I jumped in surprise and turned, hand over my heart.

"Didn't know anybody was still here," I said, then turned off the vacuum and started winding the cord.

"Thought I'd pick up a little," he admitted, taking the vacuum and rolling it back to the closet. "What else?"

"I was just going to put the last bit of cake in the fridge," I said, and he popped it in. "I like your suit," I added. It was kind of retro, but updated; fine charcoal gray wool, with a white shirt and sterling silk tie.

"It's not too much, is it?" he said, fiddling with the cuffs.

"No, it's perfect," I assured him, and after a last look around, he offered his arm and we walked to the elevator.

The night air was cool, the stars twinkling overhead as we ambled back to the residence, the dogs lagging behind. We chatted a bit about the party, the flowers I was going to put in the new beds by my workshop, and parted at the door.


	7. The fitting. And a vacation.

There was a flurry of activity on my part, as I got the package from T'challa containing the servos and the guts of what would make the arm work--I'm not an engineer, though I can follow instructions well enough to do the work--the directions, and the tools that had been used to take Bucky's measurements. I was glad to see them; it meant that there could be no discrepancies in the measurements due to differences, however slight, between tools, and the arm called for tolerances as tight as we could make them. Nick and T'Challa had gone to Siberia to the old HYDRA facility and stripped it clean. We--well, the personnel who did that sort of thing--did data mining on the computer records and had found plans for a new, hugely sophisticated arm for the Winter Soldier, and we were creating this for Bucky. It should do just about everything a biological arm could do except sweat and feel through nerves. I had a house for Bucky, in a commuter town outside the city, a freestanding single family residence with a yard in an older neighborhood; I was hoping that the Craftsman style of the house would be soothing, and it was quiet enough to relax but the city was just a train ride away. Clint's wife looked it over to make sure it was in good condition and recommended a company to repaint and refinish the floors. It needed a new furnace and water heater, and I had an AC unit put in as well, along with new kitchen appliances. I wanted to go out, but I was busy with the arm and other work, and we got called out a couple of times to fight the forces of evil. Plus, nobody was available to go with me.

Closer to the time Bucky was due, I had a conversation with Nick, a fairly lengthy one. When the various government agencies involved with clearing Bucky's name, doing press releases, resurrecting his Social Security number, updating his military records and getting him an honorable discharge, and a bunch of other things had finished their work, a diplomatic pouch went out to Wakanda with Bucky's passport, Social Security card, the military paperwork, all of it, and his return was scheduled. It must have been nice to return as a normal citizen instead of a hunted terrorist. I flew over early to New York with my work and also so that I could get some furniture in the house, shopping with a tolerant Clint in the background. I just did basic things, including what I thought might be the world's most comfortable sofa. T'Challa had gotten some preferences for me, and the walls had been painted in blues (Bucky's favorite color) with white trim; I got upholstery in darker grays so that it would look nice and modern. The mattress was quite firm, but I went with nice soft sheets and blankets. There were blinds instead of curtains, and where there were long-gone flowerbeds, I put in some low-maintenance bushes, including a few roses, nothing too high or dense for security reasons. Clint's wife and kids came over to help us set things up; she's a lovely woman. She and Clint had agreed to move the family to Seattle and were in the process of packing up, so taking the time away from their own concerns was especially thoughtful. As a thank you, I promised to babysit five times when they got resettled, so they could have some time by themselves. I finished up by setting up an account for expenses associated with the house and Bucky's resettlement at the local bank, and right on schedule, a dark sedan pulled up with T'Challa, Steve, Sigurd, and Bucky.

T'Challa greeted me; Steve looked a little nervous, patting me on the back, and finally I was face to face with the notorious Winter Soldier. He looked a lot less snappy than the news footage; he'd had a fresh haircut and instead of his armor, he was in a t-shirt and jeans. It was hot outside. While I felt that an inpenetrable stare was his normal facial expression, he managed a smile when we were introduced. I couldn't help it any longer.

I took his arm and tugged him toward the dining room table. "I'm so excited to see how this works, Mr Barnes," I said, babbling only slightly. "This is my first prosthetic, so I want it to be perfect." He sat down at the table, bemused, and took off his t-shirt. I kept my reaction to a blink--he was really cut-- and picked up an object, unwrapping it to a standard prosthetic arm. "I made this for you in case you don't want to draw attention with the deluxe model. When people see this, all they'll see is a guy who lost an arm, and there might be times when you want that anonymity. It's got the easy-lock collar, so changing them will be a snap one handed. If it works," I said nervously, and Bucky waited patiently as I slid it on, turned it to lock it into place, and stepped back. There wasn't much he could do with it, so it wasn't long before I unwrapped the second one.

"I made this as lightweight as possible, but it's still kind of heavy," I said worriedly, and handed it to him. He hefted it.

"It's lighter than the one I lost," he said in surprise.

"I wanted to make it easily detachable, in case of upgrades or if something needs repair," I said. "This cable attaches to the network in your shoulder and allows for the mechanical movement. It just snaps together," I gingerly connected the two assemblies "and the arm goes on." The collar worked smoothly with the part that had been surgically implanted. I checked the look; it was symmetrical with his other shoulder and arm; I'd put a satin finish on the metal so it didn't glare in the light and would hide scratches from normal wear and tear. "Give it a go," I encouraged, clutching a tool roll I'd brought with me just in case.

He started out moving his fingers, then rotating the wrist, testing the function of the elbow joint and shoulder. The servos operated silently and I couldn't hear any scrape of metal as the components moved. The design had metal and synthetic "muscles" under a flexible metal skin like a real arm, which, frankly, had been a bitch to make. HYDRA's notes didn't work, and I'd had some sleepless nights pummelling my brain for a solution. He stood for more vigorous motion, then stopped and examined it. Finally he looked at me and smiled, a real, full-on smile. "Thank you," he said. "This is amazing." I grinned back.

"You're welcome," I said, and tamped down hard on the urge to do a dorky happy dance in front of everybody.

Steve looked at me and smiled. "Go ahead," he said. "You deserve it." So I busted out a brief, heartfelt interpretive dance. T'Challa suppressed a snort, Steve just smiled, and Bucky looked at me like he didn't quite trust my sanity. Sigurd swayed with me in support.

After the success of the arm, I didn't have anything else to do and I didn't want to intrude, so I handed Bucky an envelope with the debit card and checks, a list of repair companies in case something went wrong with the house, the contact information for Constance, and my cell phone number. "Good luck,' I said briskly. "Let me know how the arm is working." Clint was waiting for me at the curb, and he drove me and Sigurd back to the hotel I'd chosen. We talked about how it had gone, and he told me that there was a car waiting for me in the hotel parking lot, giving me a card for the valet. I could have stayed at Stark Tower, which the others did when they were here, but I wanted to--not forget what I did for a living, but distance myself from it, just for the weekend.

"Nervous?" Clint asked as we negotiated the traffic.

"A little," I said. "I haven't been back since I left for South America. I'm kind of wondering if I'm doing the right thing. Nick compromised and agreed to Sigurd for my protection, but he's going as my support animal, which means explanations." Sigurd looked very handsome in his official service dog vest, but he was still a lot bigger than normal dogs, and he was going to cause a lot of comment.

"Just tell them that you were in a private plane accident," Clint said, shrugging. "It's the truth, and those aren't reported like commercial aircraft accidents." I nodded. I was already going to be telling people I worked for a firm with a confidentiality agreement, in order to avoid questions about my employment. "People will think you're with the CIA," he said, and we both laughed. "But you signed up last minute, so there really isn't much to be worried about security wise, you can just have a good time," he said by way of a pep talk, and then we were at the hotel. "See you Sunday," he said as I held the door for Sigurd and he got my bag out of the trunk.

I checked in and produced some paperwork that 'proved' that Sigurd was trained to a high behavioral standard as a support animal to allieiviate the concern of the front desk personnel, and then we went up. The room had a nice view...of the Stark Tower. Sigurd grumbled in his throat when we saw it, and I swept the sheers shut on the view. I had time to shower, then got ready for my high school reunion.


	8. After the reunion

Sunday night found me stretched out on the grass roof above the rec room, Sigurd and Torburn with me. I was glad to be home; the reunion had been fun, and I'd enjoyed catching up with my classmates, but I'd come away with some much-needed perspective and things to think about. Torburn had stayed with Thor and Sif while I was gone, and seemed pleased that I was back. It's always nice to be missed.

A shadow passed over me in the fading light, and I turned my head, opening my eyes to see Steve sitting down on the grass by us, giving Torburn a head rub. "How'd it go?" I asked.

"OK," Steve said a little moodily. "I wish he'd come out here instead."

I knew that Constance had talked to him too. "You know why it's better for him to have some independence,' I said mildly.

"Yeah,' he said, plucking some grass. "But he beat the hell out of me on the carrier when we were taking down HYDRA. I really think he's gotten it out of his system."

"Give me a dollar," I said, and he smiled a little and passed it over.

"I know, but it's incredible that he's still alive. I want my friend back," he said, and I knew I didn't have to say anything cautionary; he'd heard it all before and he really hoped they could forge a new friendship. I nodded instead. "So how was the reunion?" he asked, curious.

"It was fun; I worried that I'd be the most screwed up one, with my giant support dog--" I sat up and gave Sigurd a big hug "but one guy was in a wheelchair with severe MS, and everybody's got some mileage on them since high school. There are some who died, so automatically I'm better off than them," I said. "Sigurd was a big hit, he's so cute and sweet." I grinned. "He was more popular than I was."

Captain America went a little pale and gestured beside his head. "Emma, there's a thing there..." Torburn sat up, and snuffled into my hair as he removed a spider. He chewed a couple of times and laid back down, rolling over for a tummy rub. I smiled at Steve.

"There was a kind of a cocktail party on Friday, get to know you sort of thing," I went on. "Then an informal get-together in Central Park during the day, and a dinner and dance in the evening. It was good to see everybody. It feels like high school happened to somebody else, I've changed so much." And I'd seen Peter lurking around in the background at the park and outside the dinner venue, once I'd known to look, so I knew Nick had lined up extra security despite what he'd told me. I hadn't blown his cover, he was just doing what Nick asked, but it was irritating not to be able to do even this one spontaneous thing by myself.

"What was it like back then?" he asked.

"Well, my mom and I didn't live in the city, so we came in every weekday, her to work and me to go to school. I went to my classes, didn't cut but once, did club things and school activities. Didn't date much, just for a few dances really. Pretty boring," I said, laughing.

"I'm surprised you cut classes at all," a new voice said, but Stark's tone was more neutral than I'd heard it in weeks.

"My friends and I were going to our first concert alone," I said, smiling at the memory. "I went in with mom as usual; we'd arranged that I'd stay with one of my friends overnight, then I went to my friend's apartment, I dropped my stuff, and we met up with everybody else and played hooky all day."

"Strangely rebellious," Stark said. "What was the concert? AC/DC? KISS?"

"Rick Springfield," I said, blushing, wishing hard that it had been a cooler act.

"Rick Springfield?" he said, practically busting a gut, and actually rolling on the ground. I rolled my eyes. It was kind of embarrassing.

"It was a good concert," I said, defending my choices. Stark was still laughing too hard to comment. Well, hell, I'd been a teenaged girl and he was always on the cover of magazines like Tiger Beat. I still thought his music held up pretty well.

"Anyway," I said primly to Steve, who was looking mystified and writing the name in his little book. "I caught up with my friends from that time in my life, met their husbands. It was fun. I did some personal stuff too."

"Cemetery?" he asked, and I nodded. The graves of my mom and grandparents looked well-maintained, and I'd left flowers.

"Where is it?" he asked.

"Same town that Bucky's in," I said, then decided to come out with it. "The house was my grandparent's, actually. I kept it, had it maintained after I left."

"That's really nice of you to let him use it," Steve said softly. I shrugged.

"I'm not living there, and it's good to have somebody in it. It was always a happy house, if that helps. Then I went shopping. Ran into a guy I knew from the lab. I forgot how much I don't like the city in the summer. People are cross, it's uncomfortable from the concrete reflecting the light and heat, and it smells like trash."

"So what did your former coworker have to say?" Steve nudged after I fell silent.

"I owe you an apology," I said to Stark, who looked surprised. "The guy said that Steiger and the other guy had been fired at a time which would have been shortly after that lunch in Seattle. So you're not as big a prick as I thought you were." Steve suppressed a surprised laugh.

"Always nice to be vindicated," Stark said, smirking.

"I have a tendency to recall the nice things," I said reluctantly. "The advantages that I had in my professional life, the close-knit feeling I had from being part of an elite group. But I forget that it wasn't all skittles and beer. That damned genius thing Mr Stark had going. He brought it up every time he led a tour through the lab, and most of the people would always ask us all what our IQs were. Mine was the lowest, and I always felt stupid. Some of them would say "you just squeaked in!" or something stupid like that, which was always embarrassing. The next lowest one had thirteen points on me.

"Three points. It was the difference between me and Steiger. At one Christmas party, he cornered me about it, wondering what it would have been like if he had three IQ points up on me so I knew he resented that he'd just missed the cut. And it was ridiculous and arbitrary."

"What did you expect to be in high school?" Steve asked after the silence had gone on too long.

"Not this," I snorted on a laugh. "The neighborhood I grew up in was pretty conservative, girls were encouraged to study nursing or be teachers, which was the preferred option since you got the summers off with your kids. And even in the city, there were some female executive and such, but at that time, the women that I saw were mostly secretaries, working retail, lower status jobs. It wasn't until I went to college that I really felt like I had more possibilities. I went from being a student with her head down, learning what was set out for us, to asking questions and challenging assumptions. And I can't say that I'd want a life like my classmates had. Sure, I gave up a lot to work at Stark Industries. It was a great place for obsessives, but it was also true that people who wanted a little time off to see their kids' ball games or who had to stay home with sick kids didn't advance as far or as fast. I listen to my classmates talk about their kids, some of them have grandkids, their routines, and I think that it all sounds really boring, frankly. And it might be a little boring to them too sometimes, but they're happy, so it must provide compensation emotionally, but to me, the compromises that they had to make in their own ambitions and dreams is sad. But then they think I'll die sad and alone, so I guess everybody prefers the choices they made." I laughed. "I may be alone in the end, but it's been quite a ride."

"Everybody dies alone," Tony said practically. "What would your ideal life have been?"

"Well, pretty much the same, probably, but with a sibling so they could have done the family thing and I could have handed over the kids and gone back to my work," I said. "And I probably would have done more with my friends rather than working quite so many late nights. And I would have taken more vacations."

"Wow, this is a happy conversation," Steve said. "I never associated high school and death before. How was it otherwise?"

"Clint was right," I said, snickering. "He said that people would assume I worked for the CIA since I wasn't talking about my real job. I got voted 'Most Mysterious.'" They laughed.

"So I suppose you didn't tell them that Nick just got an offer to make Barbies for the Armorer, Black Widow, and Scarlet Witch," Tony said evilly.

"What?" I said, sitting up abruptly. "No. Really?" I decided to wipe the smirks off their faces. "So are they making Ken dolls of all you guys?" We squabbled amiably as we left the roof for dinner--Tony vehemently refusing to be a sexless Ken doll. I detoured briefly to put Steve's dollar and mine in the swear jar.


	9. Getting back to work

There was some disagreement at the swear jar whether 'prick' counted, but the majority consensus was that it was merely vulgar, so I didn't have to pay for it. It was still a little embarrassing, though. Steve came from a time and place where nice men didn't normally curse or be vulgar around women, and I did try to respect that and reciprocate, but sometimes my potty mouth can't resist chipping in.

At dinner, Steve and I indulged in a rich chicken Marsala; Tony did not. The real benefit of widespread mutations, I believe, is that they require more energy and thus more food. Tony didn't have mutations, so he was stuck with just a salad.

"I have to apologize to you to for asking whether you slept with my dad," he said, looking distinctly uncomfortable, pushing around lettuce leaves in his sad little salad.

"Did you really think she did?" Steve asked.

"No," Tony mumbled. "I was just angry and wanted her to be too."

"Mission accomplished," Steve said dryly as I chewed, somewhat distracted by the luscious sauce and the mushrooms.

"I accept your apology," I said, having finally swallowed, then smiled brightly at him. "But if you question my character like that again just to get a reaction, I'll be sure you regret it. " I paused, thought it over, and nodded. "Really regret it." Tony looked chastened and Steve a little alarmed.

Then I dropped the topic. "I forgot to tell you, I had a word with the police while I was back East. One of my former classmates is now the right-hand man of the police chief in the town where Bucky's living," I told Steve. "Given Bucky's notoriety, I felt it was advisable to let him know that he was living there and that his conditioning had been fixed so that he isn't a threat to the residents." Steve looked attentive. "I don't want anybody recognizing him, raising a fuss and getting him run out of town. The first two things might still happen, but I told Darrell that I'd been assured by Captain America himself that it was ok for him to be found in public these days, and that these assertions could be proven by medical professionals."

"Good idea," Tony said, unexpectedly. "The cops can talk to him themselves, assess him, and if they have any questions, they can contact you and you can put them in touch with Cap." His smirk at me was kind of evil. "How did you explain knowing Captain America?"

"I couldn't," I said, rolling my eyes. "But that's where the idea that I work for the CIA really gained traction." Then I grinned at Steve. "A lot of women, and a couple of guys who have come out, wanted to know how much of your costume is padding and how much is you." Tony started to laugh as Steve turned beet red.

"What did you tell them?" Tony asked, wiping his eyes.

"I said that I hadn't seen him naked, so I couldn't say for certain." I took a sip of wine. "There were some disappointed classmates, that's for sure," I said demurely. Steve blushed. It was cute. When Tony seemed to be enjoying Steve's discomfort a bit too much, I added, "I did say that yours was entirely the suit." Tony looked affronted, and Steve chuckled.

"But you told them that I'm in shape under the suit, right?" Tony pressed, and I laughed as the banter continued. It was really nice to have things back to normal; I don't like to carry an extended grudge. It's wearing. I had a much more relaxed evening than I'd anticipated.

It was good to have distractions, though, as sequencing DNA from my samples and poor Les' continued. It was so much faster than it was even five years ago, but there were a lot of base pairs to map, and then they had to be compared, and nobody knew exactly what to look for, although the smart bet was that the mutations would be in the junk DNA of the specific chromosomes. Thor had already said that he and/or Sif would take a set of samples back to Asgard the next time either of them returned, so there could be more people working on the problem. I got a sick feeling every time I thought about it, so mostly I tried not to. It's not pleasant to wonder if your own skin was going to end up killing you in a lingering and painful manner. I didn't want to think about that, but I also knew I wasn't going to go out like that. Planning, though, would wait until I knew if I had to worry about it.

All of us spent some time in costume at the visitor's center, making mostly unannounced appearances. School groups got free admission, and other kids' groups got a greatly discounted admission tickets; additionally, parents in straitened circumstances could apply for free passes. We wanted everybody to be able to get in touch with the softer side of the Avengers. The next day, though, was a Make-A-Wish event for kids from all over the country, so all of us who were acceptable in public (Hulk was the only one excepted) were expected to be there and interact with the kids. I had a new costume variant to try--bronze-washed distressed finish chain mail instead of plate armor, no ridiculous little skirt, a floral design embossed into the leather at the side of the pants, and leather gauntlets rather than the metal ones, so I was feeling pretty peppy. Not so Tony, who was complaining about the weight of the suit and loss of dexterity with the gauntlets. Everybody listened tolerantly, but there was no question of him not wearing it--the kids wanted to see Iron Man in full regalia.

Tony made a big entrance and as usual took on the role of Master of Ceremonies; the rest of us walked in rather more leisurely and met the kids as a group first, then split up to where the kids were grouped at tables according to their favorite Avenger. Not surprisingly, Iron Man, Captain America, Thor and Black Widow were the most popular, but to my surprise, I had a little group as well, mostly girls, but I also had a couple of boys. I'd been told some kids wanted to meet me, but I had presumed they'd be at other tables. I answered questions about my work, was vague about both my mutations and how I got them, and gave each kid a tiny toy replica of my hammer that I'd made in my workshop. The girls liked my new costume and wanted to know how I made the chain mail. We were also expected to circulate to other tables, and when I returned to mine after meeting kids at Scarlet Witch's table (she was entertaining them by making things fly around them), I found Tony at mine, explaining how I'd helped him make his new suit. The kids were more impressed with that than anything else, and I resolved to have him tell that story at all these get-togethers. There were a lot of pictures taken and the kids reshuffled into groups according to food restrictions so that they could have some treats. All of us were affected, Clint most of all. You could tell that as a father himself, he really related to the kids and their parents. The kids were fantastic, but I was glad when the activity was over; so many kids so sick with nothing that any of us could do to help was sad.

My work had dried up unexpectedly; Nick told me in exasperation to relax and take it easy, but that's easier said than done. I was working with a patent lawyer to discuss patenting my new alloys, but we weren't sure it was necessary since all of them needed to be nudged along by me. I bugged the lawyer to the limits of her tolerance, then switched my attention to the medical staff. They didn't have any news for me, but then somebody had the bright idea to see whether I could isolate bases in the double helix of DNA and swap them out without damaging the DNA. Working with the strands of genetic material was difficult and we found out pretty quickly that any substitutions of bases had to be made when the strand was being unzipped and duplicated; just yanking out a base pair and sticking something else on the sugars damaged the macromolecules. It was difficult work; I kept a line drawing of the base pairs with corrections with me at all times for reference since pushing atoms around a biological matrix was a lot more difficult than pushing crystal forms. It had been a long shot anyway; there was no way I could personally alter enough DNA to reduce or remove the mutation, and I slouched out of the medical suite after a couple of weeks of frustration. It seemed to have given them ideas about potential treatments, and as I left they were talking about A-DNA and Z-DNA. I didn't understand the advanced structures at all.

I was grateful when engineering contacted me about helping with parts for the next generation quinjet, then Steve had the bright idea of giving selected kids little copies of his shield the way I had with my hammer, then Thor wanted in on that too. Natasha proposed little pins of her red hourglass. Tony wanted pins of his mask, and finally Nick stepped in and arranged for an outside company to produce small numbers of high quality, enameled souvenirs that we could give to kids like at the Make-A-Wish event. It was good that he did, otherwise I'd have been stuck making trinkets instead of more interesting things. The next generation of the quinjets was promising some major upgrades in electronics, maneuvering, and upgrades in the medical unit as well as more comfortable seats and increased gear storage, and I was excited to be contributing to the fabric of the quinjets with high-stress metal components and more durable armor plating. The bad guys were scaling up their damage, and I had hopes that this round of plating would be a few jumps ahead of them.


	10. I thought that I was done with gym class

We were called up for a mission in the Mediterranean where a group of baddies was holding an entire government's ministers hostage. Per my usual mission requirements, I sat in the quinjet and listened to the op as it went down. We'd gotten blueprints of the building before we left, so I remembered the details and was able to follow who was where, making the situation much more interesting for me. From what I could hear, my teammates had the situation in hand, although they were finding it harder going than they'd anticipated; the defense was better that it should have been; they had mutants of their own. Ever since the mission where Thor had knocked out Wanda, where it had been determined that Vision had turned off the coms, nobody but me was allowed to touch the communication array in the quinjet during a mission. In a time where nothing was going on, I turned down the quinjet's audio system and put in an earpiece, the team's chatter in background audio, then began slowly changing the channels on the receiver in the earpiece, allowing time for decryption if a coded channel was being used. And there was; the baddies had their own chatter. I noted five names that seemed to be the core group as well as some mercenaries. One of the core group was apparently absent, as he was referenced as being "at home." It was nothing specific that was said, but I started to have a bad feeling about this bunch; it felt to me that this action was kind of a scrimmage rather than a regulation game.

I turned around and sidled toward the rear of the quinjet after hearing a slight sliding sound, but was surprised by a man who matched the description of the mercenaries, all in black, with a black mask that covered the entire face and head except for the eyes. He grabbed for me, but I liberated a parachute first and smacked him as hard as I could across the face with it. He staggered, then hit me. Yeah, it hurt, but I fell into a fire extinguisher, which I wrenched free and hit the guy with it like it was a baseball bat. My adrenaline was way up, and it was good that it hit the guy's shoulder first before it made contact with his head or I probably would have killed him. I zip-tied the crap out of him and left him on the floor, closing myself into the cockpit. When the others returned to the jet after turning over the mercs to the local authorities--the real conspirators having escaped--they were bemused to see my captive.

"There's a couple inches here that doesn't have a zip tie," Tony said, pointing. I curled my lip at him.

"Are you ok, Emma?" Steve asked, ignoring Tony.

"Yeah, he hit me, but not too hard," I said, touching my cheek. I knew there wouldn't be any marks on it. Natasha gave me a cold pack anyway, and it did feel good. The ride home was pretty quiet as we were all working on our after-action reports for Nick. For only the second time, I had some excitement of my own to describe.

At the debriefing, Nick ran through the direct action, using the projector to provide a three dimensional view of the building and the locations of the hostages, bad guys, and good guys. I listened as Nick asked for clarifications and amplifications, then required everybody who had responded to amend their after-action reports to include them. Then we got to my part of the narrative.

"The quinjets can decrypt signals?" Clint asked, and I stared at him.

"Yeah, didn't you know?"

"No," he said, looking frustrated. "How do you know?"

"It's in the book," I said blankly. "I'm working on the new quinjets, so for background, the engineers gave me the book that has the specifications for all the equipment. It's in there, an upgrade of the current equipment." Clint muttered something I didn't quite catch. "Stop by my workshop after and I'll give it to you." Then I got to identify our core baddies of Ballista, Nepthys, Necros, and Sess.

"The other one, apparently a man with the code name of Namitar, sat this one out, doing something at their home base or whatever. Some of them appear to have mutations, but I'm not sure exactly what they are; Ballista moves projectiles, Nepthys, I don't know, Necros, I don't know, Sess, I don't know. I Googled them; there's nothing about these particular individuals, but Nepthys was an Egyptian goddess of death and decay and Namitar was a Mesopotamian god of disease. Necros, there's just the obvious allusion to death, and I don't have any idea about Sess. I got the feeling that this was more of a test rather than its own objective," I said. "I'm not sure, but I think that it was a chance to go up against the Avengers and see how you responded, what they could expect if this was just the warm up rather than the main event."

Nick had questions about that, polling the Avengers in the action for their impressions of the group. Nobody had any data, but there was general support for my interpretation of the mission. Then he gave some people assignments, seconding Wanda to him for interrogation of the merc that I'd knocked out. To my surprise, I was given a task too. Self defense.

"You can't rely on handy fire extinguishers," Nick tells me severely. "Although that was a good use of what was available." He details Steve to do the dirty work of toughening me up.

Personally, I'm afraid of getting tougher. I already feel like a freak, and I wonder what toughening me up is going to entail, because one thing I know about Nick is that there's never just one reason for doing something. There will be layers of meaning and uses behind this dictate.

And this explains why I ran myself ragged over the obstacle course the team used; Steve had to boost me over the wall obstacle and he was barely winded. I, on the other hand, left winded behind me early on. We end up in the gym. Tony is practicing Wing Chun with a master of the art. He doesn't acknowledge us, but I know he's aware we're there; Tony doesn't miss much when it's not about him. We encounter our first problem when Steve tells me to hit him.

"Why?" I asked. "I don't want to hit you." Steve insists, and I pop him on the jaw.

"Harder," Tony yells at me, not breaking form with his master. "I've wanted to do that for years!"

Steve frowns. "Tony's right. Harder. And this time don't hit bone with your hand, you could break the bones in your hand." I unconsciously clasp my hands behind my back.

Steve gets exasperated at me after a few rounds. "Why won't you hit me like you mean it?" he asks crossly.

"Because I don't want to hit you," I said blankly. "We're friends."

I think Steve really wants to swear. 

I'm quite surprised when somebody grabs me from behind. Actually, I'm scared, and I fight dirty to escape, including raking my attacker's face with my nails. What can I say? I like to keep a nice manicure. I've got the guy down and I'm about to gouge his eyes before running away when arms encircle my waist and I'm lifted bodily away.

The guy on the ground sits up. "I think she can defend herself," he mutters. Natasha, standing off to the side, looks at me crossly as Steve warily lets me go. It turns out that he's from SHIELD and her sparring partner. I mutter an apology and he nods. The professionals are convinced I should learn a weapon, and Natasha's partner has an idea about which he's evasive, so I'll have to wait for the next time he comes out.

Steve is serious that I should do more cardio, and gets me up in the morning to chase me around the obstacle course. I'm actually strong enough, but the obstacle course makes me move differently than I do in my work, so it takes some getting used to to be hauling myself over things. It isn't too long though before I don't need Steve's helping hand. Part of that is also due to the rope climbing he makes me do in the gym. It's like high school gym class all over again, and Steve is in real danger of losing his status as my favorite Avenger. Tony times his workouts to coincide with mine and taunts me as I pull myself up the damned ropes and do the calisthenics. Steve decides he could use the extra work and makes him join in too, so he has two people glaring at him as he leads us in old-fashioned exercises like pull-ups, pushups, and jumping jacks. Tony gets to escape when his master shows up, though. When I'm just a mess on a mat at the feet of Captain damn America, Tony's master approaches me with a thing. It's rectangular and heavy, and I look at it and the master in curiosity before discovering that it opens. It's a metal fan. I get a short lesson in how to use it. I'm feeling a lot better about using it rather than the gun Natasha wants to train me with. She and her training partner show up partway through this lesson, and he's got a present of his own.

"It's a poleaxe," he says. Straight outta the Middle Ages. There's a nice long wood handle, a big spike on the end, a wicked curved blade on the side of the shaft, and a metal hook on the other side of the blade. It requires zero explanation for how it works, and since it was a common tool of foot soldiers, it can be learned by pretty much anybody and doesn't require a lot of skill to use. I'm feeling more fond of this thing by the second. Plus it doesn't necessarily have to be lethal. The guy gives me a flash drive with some descriptions of how soldiers were trained with this, and that's all. He and Natasha go off to the side and start warming up. Steve lets me stretch out and leave.

I get about halfway to the residence when I have to stop, take a break, and stretch again. I think I did too much, and by the time the residence is in sight, I'm trying not to whimper and I'm grateful for the poleaxe since I can use it for a staff. I hear somebody on the path behind me and hobble to the side. Steve doesn't say anything, just scoops me up and carries me to my apartment, where he deposits me beside the bathtub. I get the hot water running, throwing in bath salts and a huge amount of Epsom salts, and when he returns, he's got a change of clothes, including a skirt that will be easier to get into than jeans, my bottle of Advil, a couple of large bottles of cold water and one of orange juice from the minifridge. And my Kindle.

"Sorry," he says, abashed. "I'm not used to training anybody, so I went overboard. Next time we won't do so much." He takes my new weapons from me, drops them off on the table, then leaves after telling me he'll check on me later.

I step into the shower first to wash my hair, then I manage to get into the bathtub. I'm too tired to read, and actually take a little nap after washing down the painkiller with the orange juice and part of a bottle of water. I feel better about things a bit when I haul myself out, and I manage to walk slowly over to the caf for a late lunch, escorted by Sigurd and Torburn, who are concerned.

We skip the next day's workout the next day and take it easier the following session. I'm able to go to work afterward, which is good because when I was researching the tessen, the war fan, I came across an unusual weapon that I wanted to construct. It would require practice to use, but the urumi looked like it could be highly effective if I could learn how to use it. I would have two weapons that I could use from a little distance and one for close fighting, and that should satisfy Nick.


	11. Winter is coming

I like the weapons that were found for me, Nick approved of them, Tony is already planning to add them to my action figures (that finally have some action to be doing) when it gets out that I have signature weapons, and everybody seems happier that I'm not going to be helpless. I start to work on new versions of the fan and the poleaxe; the ones I was given are absolutely functional, but there's no doubt about it--to play in high-stakes superheroing, style counts a lot. I look at photographs from museum collections for inspiration, and I start by working on the tessen. My reading indicates that war fans' real beauty is in their multifunctionality--different kinds can be used to parry blows, for signaling, as a hand fan, as a club, fending off arrows and darts, as a throwing weapon, and as an aid in swimming. I watched YouTube videos--a lot of them had people flipping them around and looking like they were auditioning for movies, but there were some very good ones that showed how they could be used in combat and self-defense, including how to immobilize an attacker. I used a heavier alloy that would be rust-proof, unlike earlier iron models, and allow for full strikes and blocking without being crushed or mangled. The textile division produced a couple of pieces of silk woven with metal threads, treated to resist stains, punctures and tearing where it would be attached to the fan. One piece was charcoal colored, woven in a tiny repeating pattern that looked like maple leaves, and the other was an elegant colorful design of a branch of cherry blossoms painted on the silk. I made two of the fans, liking the stealth aspect of one and the signalling capability of the other. And they were fully functional as a hand fan, which would be helpful in missions during the summer. I darkened the metal of the stealth fan so it didn't gleam, but left the cherry blossom fan's ribs with a silver satin finish. I put a pebbled texture on the guards, the outside metal spokes where I'd be handling it, to improve grip, and called them done. After awhile, nobody came by my workshop because I was always pouncing on them to test a move I'd seen in the YouTube videos or working to make them an ingrained response. Steve let me practice on him and Tony during our workouts, so that helped keep me motivated. Tony's master showed me pressure points on the body where I could strike and at least distract an opponent.

Then I started to work on the poleaxe. I selected a beautiful piece of ash wood for the shaft, feeling that if this wood worked for baseball bats, archery longbows, and the frame for Morgan cars, it should hold up to a few supers or mercenaries. I stained it rosewood and constructed a pierced metal sleeve for it that would provide additional strength as well as an attractive element. I fluted the top spike for aesthetic purposes, and etched a floral design similar to the one on the seams of my uniform pants on the blade, which was also made to curve gracefully. My research had shown a lot of variation in all three components of the poleaxe, but perhaps the hook part was the most modified; in some places it was replaced by something that looked like a meat tenderizer, allegedly for bashing through plate armor. I decided to stay with the hook, used for catching something and moving it toward you since I could use it to force somebody off balance. It looked elegant and wicked, and it was etched as well. The only part of any of these weapons that were sharpened was the blade of the poleaxe. I chose the metal carefully so the balance of the weapon would be ideal for me and I used a dead tree near the workshop to practice with it. I was a lot more comfortable with a tree than the prospect of slicing my friends or puncturing them.

As for the weapon I'd found for myself, I approached that with extreme care. The urumi was essentially a flexible metal sword that was wielded like a whip. I could immediately see the potential for disaster, especially when learning how to use it, but this was one weapon where my skin condition would be a real help; I wouldn't be able to cut myself while learning if I protected my eyes. Before investing a lot of effort into making this thing, I ordered a bullwhip to see if I could even use it. And why I developed a certain amount of skill, I didn't really feel comfortable, and training with the metal version would take up a lot of time. Reluctantly, I abandoned the urumi in favor of the two weapons I had that I knew I could use pretty well.

As fall deepened and prepared for winter, the big excitement was that Bucky was coming out for a visit. Tony and I had talked off and on about loss, regrets, lost opportunities, and blame as I'd tried to beat him up with my fans in practice sessions, and he hadn't made any objections when Steve had tentatively brought up the idea in a team meeting. One afternoon, as the light was gently fading away, Steve brought Bucky up to the rec room. I watched over my Kindle as Steve introduced him to those he didn't know; most of the Avengers were friendly. Natasha, having faced him in combat, was a little more wary, and Tony, while he didn't shake Bucky's hand, was curt but not hostile. I caught Steve's eye, and he raised his eyebrows. I lifted one shoulder in a little shrug, then Steve brought him over to me.

I stood and put out my hand. "Nice to see you again, Mr Barnes." He shook my hand in bemusement, and we sat. We started to chat about the house, his forays into gardening. It was interesting to see the changes in him. Although our first encounter had been brief, he'd had a depressing air about him. Now, although darkness would probably always be with him, he smiled like it didn't hurt and seemed more wary than weary. His demeanor warmed as we talked.

"Why do you call him Mr Barnes but use his nickname if we talk about him?" Steve wanted to know.

I shifted, a little embarrassed. My grandparents, who had had a big hand in raising me, had taught me to use surnames for people unless invited to use their given names. Manners had relaxed a lot, but I didn't know where the Winter Soldier stood on the topic, so I thought I'd give him the respect of the old-fashioned address. "'Mr Barnes' is a little cumbersome as a reference, don't you think? And I don't know him well enough to use a nickname." I wasn't ready for Bucky's grin. Wow. I could totally see the ladykiller of Steve's stories.

"You can definitely call me Bucky," he said. I smiled back. It was impossible not to.

As the conversation continued, the other Avengers, including Tony, drifted over to listen, then started joining in. It was an excellent result, and I tried to monitor everybody's reactions. Then we went to the caf for dinner, then back to the rec room to have some fun. Pretty soon, Wanda had coaxed Bucky to play video games with her and Tony had joined Steve and me at the pool table. I counted that as a good sign. We did not discuss Bucky at all; instead, we talked about a trip Natasha, Wanda and I had taken; a girls' night out. We'd taken a quinjet to New York, left the jet to be loaded with some parts for the jet under development, changed, and had dinner at a trendy restaurant before going to see 'Hamilton.'

After the game, which Steve won, we stood at the pool table discussing the merits of singing, rapping, and dancing Founding Fathers, and Tony said he should have come with us.

"Didn't know you had an interest in musical theater," I said. Tony did jazz hands and a kick-ball-change. Steve grinned. "The larger problem is that you're not a girl." Steve snorted, and Tony had no rejoinder.

"Mind if I join you?" Bucky said tentatively, and I saw that Vision had taken his place at the video games. We all looked at Tony, who clipped out "Sure" after a moment, and Steve and Bucky teamed up against Tony and me. Best of three turned into best of five, then best of seven, but in the end, Tony and I squeaked a hard-fought victory. I said goodnight, having some research I had to read before work the next day, and left, Torburn and Sigurd racing ahead to play in the cold air. Tony caught up with me about halfway to the residence. We walked in silence for a bit.

"I was really impressed with you back there," I said abruptly.

Tony smiled slightly. "He's not so bad. If you can get past the whole parent-killing thing." I nodded, and we dropped the conversation. I patted his arm as we separated at the residence.

The next morning I was working to come up with a suitable metal for the quinjet interior--weight was an issue, but safety and strength couldn't be compromised. Finally I took a break, grabbed my poleaxe and walked outside. Then I walked back inside and grabbed a fan, trying to establish the habit of having one with me. I set to work with the tree, jabbing with the point, slashing with the blade. You don't have to be skilled to use a poleaxe, just strong.

"What did the tree ever do to you?" a voice behind me said, and I whirled to see Steve and Bucky.

"Better the tree than me," Steve said self-protectively.

"Come at me," Bucky said abruptly, stepping forward. His stance, his way of carrying himself changed, and I figured that I was seeing the transformation into the legendary assassin.

"Buck--" Steve said, and was cut off by a gesture. Bucky's eyes and expression went flat, and he stepped toward me. I slashed instinctively with the blade, clanging against the metal arm. I stepped back and lowered the poleaxe, which irritated Bucky.

"That's my best work!" I said. "I don't want to hurt it." Steve looked at the area where the blade had hit and shook his head; no damage. Bucky strode toward me, and I jabbed at him with the spike, using the additional reach the weapon gave me, but he swatted away my attacks and in a swift move disarmed me, the metal arm pressing into my throat, cutting off my air.

"Fight like you mean it," he growled into my ear as my fingers clawed uselessly on the metal. His words stiffened my spine and I jerked the tessen off my belt, smacking Bucky's head hard with it, making his grip loosen. I belted him again to get away and picked up my other weapon. This time the sparring wasn't practice. I knew I was up against an assassin even more ruthless than Black Widow, and while deep in my head I knew he wasn't going to kill me, he was so scary that I put everything I had into it. My big victory was using the hook on his ankle to take him down, but he was right back up and it was just a matter of time before I was down and out.

Bucky stepped back, hands raised, and I collected my weapons from the ground. "You need to find an opponent so you can really learn how to fight," he said, more friendly although the attitude of the Winter Soldier clung to him like shadow armor. "What is that thing?" he asked, pointing to the tessen, which I'd never unfolded.

"Nuh-uh," I said, shaking my head and folding my arms. "I'm not giving away even a small advantage."

Unexpectedly, Bucky grinned and the aura of the assassin dissipated. "Well done," he said. "Never give away more than you have to." He rubbed his head where I'd really cracked him with the tessen.

Steve grinned at me, and we got to the real purpose of the visit, which was to show Bucky the workshop. He was interested and asked intelligent questions, then they took their leave and I got back to work.

By the time I came in for dinner, video of my trouncing had made the rounds. Nick sat beside me as I was tasting the soup and asked me questions about the training bout which I answered to the best of my ability. Nick nodded.

"You looked scared," he said conversationally, and I flushed. "What would you have done if he'd been there for you?"

"I would have used my weapons and tried to get into my workshop," I said instantly.

"You've trapped that too?" Steve asked, apparently remembering the workshop where I'd met him, and I nodded. Nick perked up at that, and I explained in no detail that I had some self-defense stuff built in. There was no point to it; now that he knew, I knew Nick would be poking around until he found out what they were, and I thought I'd let him have his fun. Some were obvious; the bleeding-edge glass that could survive anything less than a daisy-cutter bomb almost unscratched. Other aspects, like the nightingale floor on the porch, were subtle and completely low tech; but the weapons designers had also outfitted my workshop since it was a freestanding structure and there was no way that the whole compound could be perfectly defended.

"Why didn't you do that?" Bucky asked quietly, and those who were eavesdropping from the surrounding tables shut up to hear. "You know what I could have done to you."

"Because I felt, at that moment, that you were trying to teach me something," I said after some reflection. "I think that if you'd wanted to hurt or kill me that there would have been no fight."

I didn't add that I'd been too terrified to run.

Bucky and Nick got into a discussion about my defensive capabilities, and I ate. Steve ate too, although he was monitoring the conversation more obviously. They were still chatting when I left to do my homework for the next day. Somehow I wasn't surprised when Tony caught up with me.

"So what was it like facing off the Winter Soldier?" he said without preamble. "You looked like a mouse facing a leopard."

"Not the Winter Soldier," I said slowly. "It was Bucky; just because he's no longer programmed doesn't mean he doesn't still have the skills, though. I've never been so afraid in my life, and that takes into account both aircraft crashes."

"But you didn't think he'd kill you."

"No. If he came here to kill me, he would have and there was nothing I could have done but delay the inevitable for a few seconds. I felt that he wanted to give me something. Knowledge. Or experience. Because whacking the bark off a tree might have given me familiarity with the weapon, but there's nothing like using it against something that can fight back. He could have killed me four or five times before he even got his arm around my neck, and he could have snapped my neck easily." Tony grunted. "I think he was irritated that I don't train harder or more effectively. And besides, if he was here to kill anybody, it would probably be you." Tony stopped to consider this, and I went inside to hit the books.


	12. Creepy crawlies

The night before Bucky left, we were in the rec room and he asked me to look at his hand as he felt there was a little hesitation when he moved it. I took his hand (people seem to expect me to touch whatever it is that I'm working on; they don't seem to get it that I don't need to) and looked down deep. Sure enough, there was a small amount of dust in the middle joint of the index finger and a bit in the wrist as well. I frowned; the joints were supposed to have been sealed with a special lubricant that Research had whomped up; this seemed to be deteriorating. I shook my head, explained this to Bucky, and we chatted as I surveyed the other connections in the arm. Son of a gun. There were a lot of them, and they all showed signs of coming unsealed. This would warrant an immediate action from Research. Somehow we got onto the topic of his HYDRA work, and when he said a familiar name, I straightened up, cracking my head against his jaw. I hadn't realized he was watching so closely.

I apologized quickly, then looked around, motioning Nick over. Everybody else in the room floated over in his wake. "Bucky just mentioned Sess," I told him urgently. So far we hadn't had a lot of luck finding any information about any of the baddies in that group. I finished removing the dust from the joints and let go of the metal hand. Bucky leaned back and thought.

"I know HYDRA was interested in recruiting his group," he said slowly. "That guy was a herpetologist, made money on the side catching snakes for their venom. He was working near the uranium mines in Australia when he was careless and bitten by one of the snakes he was trying to bag." Radioactive snakes. Great. "He chose his name because it sounds like a snake's hiss. Poser," he said disdainfully, and I repressed a snort of laughter. "It apparently gave him an immunity to poisons of all kinds, but he's working with venoms, specifically. Weaponizing them."

"Peachy," Nick said. "What can you tell us about the others?"

"Not much, I wasn't tasked with recruitment. Ballista can move a baseball-sized thing like an ace baseball pitcher; with smaller projectiles, she can achieve speeds almost as high as bullets fired from a gun. Nepthys is mostly just muscle for the group, I'd say as strong as Hulk but not as big. Necros is also muscle, but he enjoys killing. He made HYDRA's outreach officer very nervous; apparently he said that Necros gets a sexual thrill from blood flowing over his hands." I wasn't the only one grossed out by that. "Namitar is the one to really watch, though; he's apparently the brains of the group as well as the leader. It seems his background is in medical research, although he's pretty coy about it. None of them talk much at all about their pasts, so intel is really poor. His thing at the time--and this was several years ago--was infectious diseases, specifically trying to find a way to key bacteria or viruses to a specific person. Maximum suffering, minimum public health risk, which reduced the risk of being caught, too. There were a lot of people who wanted to know more about the group. They named their team Night Terror." He looked around at us. "How did you get to know about them?"

"We encountered them on a mission," Nick said grimly.

"It's not good to be on their radar," Bucky said flatly. The other Avengers started discussing this new information and what it might mean for us. Nick and Steve sat down and I moved away, first emailing Research about the breakdown of the lubrication and then listened to the others. Tony joined the group around the couch, listening to Bucky.

"That is a highly unpleasant group of individuals," Vision said, prompting wry chuckles at the understatement. Bruce was silent and I knew he was thinking about radiation-induced mutations and the implications of weaponizing toxins and disease. I was worried about that myself. Weaponizing anything would mean very virulent diseases and in this case toxins as well, and probably in different forms--liquids for ingestion or injection, aerosol forms, probably. Biological warfare had been around for a long time, but the Cold War probably represented the bulk of the research on both sides. This was a nightmare. I remembered after my accident, I'd run through my savings with doctor bills seeking a cure or treatment. I'd been sitting in a waiting room when a young woman came in. She had looked like shit, to put it mildly. She'd been backpacking through India and been bitten by a king cobra. Her description of the animal was scary enough--about nine feet long, able to move fast even when the upper third of its body was raised, and it had growled at her before biting--but she had nearly died from the venom. She'd actually stopped breathing on the way to the hospital, which had no antivenom; they'd put her on a respirator though, which had kept her breathing long enough for the muscle paralysis to wear off. Then she'd picked up a nosocomial infection, and they'd returned home right after she was pronounced fit to fly. And some guy wanted to weaponize that? Insane. I listened for awhile as the gang talked about tactics; we were united in the desire to get these guys before they did something dreadful, but I thought that if HYDRA and us couldn't find much information on them, we were at a big disadvantage. We'd have to wait for them to come to us, which we'd proven we would do given a plausible situation. Nope. Nopety nope. Not good at all.

The party broke up and I left with the others, leaving Nick, Bucky, Steve and Tony still deep in conversation. Didn't sleep much that night.

The next morning, I joined Thor and Sif at breakfast. None of us had an appetite or much yen for conversation. Clint joined us; his family was due to arrive at their new farm later today, our movers close behind. He'd strained some muscles in a training accident, which made him a bit pissy, and he was content to eat in silence too. We all looked up when Nick stopped at the table. "Barnes is getting ready to leave," he told us. "If you want to say goodbye, hustle on out there. We're having a meeting this afternoon, so do whatever you need to get done before then."

None of us was really hungry, so it was a good reason to stop messing around pretending to eat. At the jet, I told Bucky I'd let him know what Research said and that I'd enjoyed seeing him again. The others were more restrained although friendly, and as I left to head back to my workshop, I saw Steve loping for the jet.

At my workshop, I had an email from Marketing, which indicated that most people didn't like my chain mail armor. I frowned; I liked it a lot and it had taken a good chunk of time to make. They suggested slight changes to my initial costume, feeling that The Armorer should be wearing, well, armor. They also wanted me to name my weapons, like Thor's Mjolnir and Natasha's Widow's Bite. I wasn't in the mood to be amused and had to work to keep from replying that the fans were Sam and Dean and the poleaxe was Mr Pointy. PR's email cheerily announced that I had a fan club they'd set up; the fans had voted to call the group Apprentices. They wanted my opinion on typefaces and an image to be used on promotional material, for hell's sake. They didn't want to my hammer as my sigil, fearing confusion with Mjolnir. I fired up the forge, no intent to make anything, just wanting to pound on something.

I'd gotten a good rhythm of heating, hammering, and cooling cycles going, and had flattened out an ingot of metal the size of a Pink Pearl eraser to a thin, flexible sheet when I heard the door slide open. I turned and put down my hammer when I saw it was Steve, pulling off my eye protection and rubbing the bridge of my nose.

"I wanted to thank you for how you behaved to Bucky during his visit," he said. "I think your acceptance of him helped the others to do the same."

"Tony's lack of hissy had more to do with that than I did."

"I disagree. They'd have been polite because of that, but they were friendly because you were," he said, leaning against the workshop bench. I may not really be a materials scientist anymore, but the trappings of a lab made me comfortable. I settled beside him. "It really meant a lot to him that you were so nice, even after that sparring session."

"Sparring, nothing. He let me get in a few blows."

"Don't deflect. Even though he's been officially cleared by the government, most people aren't exactly warm toward him, and he's--before, he was always everybody's buddy, popular. Everybody liked to be around Bucky. I think he misses that more than just about anything."

I shrugged. Steve would know better than most. I yawned and put my head on his shoulder.

"Didn't sleep much last night," I mumbled. Steve put his arm around my shoulders.

"What really bothers you about Night Terror?" he asked as the door slid open again and Tony walked in.

"Aside from the guy who gets off on the blood on his hands?" I asked, lip curling.

"Aside from that," Steve agreed.

"I know it's going to sound stupid. Or naive," I said, stalling. I didn't really want to get into this in front of Tony.

"Spit it out," Tony said impatiently. I sighed and rolled my eyes.

"The herpetologist. The medical researcher. They're really scary. With a guy with a gun or knife, you know what you're going to get. Their work you probably will never see coming. And it will be devastating." I studied my fingernails and ripped off a broken nail. "And I guess I just don't really feel that scientists have any business doing that sort of thing."

"What sort of thing?" Tony prodded. I sighed again.

"Destruction. War. I know that chemists were responsible for the gas used in World War I, and physicists for the atom bombs of World War II, and I know that work in the sciences makes other advances possible. I just don't think that they should do it. Science should help the world, not help destroy it." Secretly, I felt that scientists should be above making weapons.

"It's not stupid," Steve said after a moment.

"It's naive," Tony said, and I slouched down. Steve glared at Tony, who shrugged. "Scientists want knowledge," he said impatiently. "Somebody has to pay for it to happen. You yourself are helping to make weapons."

"I make stuff for you guys so that you can get the baddies before they get you," I say, surly. "I'm not arming you so that you can go massacre civilians." Tony considers this and shrugs it off, walking to my computer and waking it. He reads the email from PR and laughs, not unkindly.

"Your fan club is cooler than mine," he said. "They're named the Iron Kids. I don't get a lot of adults in the official club. I must do something about that." He pulls up a website and enters login information a few times.

"Mine's just called the 'Captain America Fan Club,'" Steve noted. Tony snorted and clicked on a bunch of stuff before stepping back.

"Look here. I read your employment file when you sued me, refreshed my memory after Austria. This is the initial paperwork when you were hired." Curiously, I see a scan of a document, filled out by hand with a familiar, impatient writing. "Dad filled this one out himself," Tony said. "Pretty rare occurrence. Look there." He highlighted an area of the scan.

It placed me in the materials lab and laid out my training track and directions that I was to be encouraged to go to grad school. The pertinent part said that I wasn't to be put into the weapons program. "Down the road, personal convictions would get the better of her and we won't get her best work."

"It's no secret you have decided convictions," Tony said. Then he relaxed. "But you're not wrong about those guys being scary. Fury is briefing the medical staff. We may have to develop a microbiology lab, do our own research on antidotes and venoms." Then he looks at Steve and me.

"Where's my hug?" he demanded, overlooking the fact that Steve just had his arm over my shoulders. "Aren't we friends too?" That was debatable, but I pushed away from the bench and gave Tony a brief hug. It was the easy way to shut him up, plus it was also weirdly sort of nice. Then Steve got a hug to keep both sides equal, I shut down the forge, rolled the metal sheet up, and we went to lunch before Nick's meeting.


	13. Time to go to work

Steve insists on lunch before the meeting, and he and Tony bully me into actually eating it. Tony teases me about my fan club and the efforts to develop my brand. I hate it when he's feeling playful and he has limited targets. Steve gets some of the snark, but it's mostly for me today. The problem is that Marketing wants to use my new weapons in their branding efforts, and I don't want anybody to know what I have until I have to use them and there's somebody who will tell the internet watching it. 

Branding. Pah. I feel like a cow with a big ol' branding iron aiming for her rump.

"Why not use your helmet?" Steve says practically, and I consider that, perking up.

"Marketing suggested it, but what they showed me looks like clip art," I say, slouching a bit.

"Sit up straight," Tony directed me. "They can always jazz it up a little. They work for you, remember."

"So I can tell them to bugger off?" I say, perking up.

"No. Eat your cheesecake."

I didn't realize that I wanted it until Tony stabbed his fork at it.

After lunch, the five of us went up to the conference room and the dogs stretched out in front of the windows. Although there's not assigned seating, it's just like school where everybody has a favorite seat. It looks weird with just the three of us, but Nick joins us just as we start to bicker over nothing in particular, then the others take their seats and Peter joins us by Skype.

Nick starts off by recapping what we know about Night Terror, which is pretty much what I heard the night before, with the added bonus that it was thought that the team was mobile, with no fixed lair. I frowned; making a lab with the complexity that the two scientists would need mobile would be difficult and time consuming to set up each time they moved. I looked over at Bruce who was evidently thinking the same thing. He speaks up and voices these concerns to the team.

"Maybe that's why we haven't heard of them or their weapons before," Sam says logically. "Maybe their research is slow because it gets interrupted."

"Our doctors are of the opinion that Sess's work is achievable. I think he's probably sitting on it until Namitar is ready with his part of the evil plot. The docs don't know if what he wants to achieve--keying disease to a specific individual by use of DNA-- is even possible," Nick informs us.

"I think we need to act as if it is achievable," Steve says. "Find them and shut them down."

"I don't disagree," Nick said. He lets the group talk about it for awhile, then we get our assignments, mostly concerned with locating the team and gathering intelligence about them. Bruce and I are tasked to work with the medical staff (Bruce) and Research (me) to figure out responses to the venom Sess is said to be working with and getting R&D to work on protective clothing, air filters, the like.

"This isn't really my area of expertise," Bruce fidgeted. "I'm not into toxins."

"But you can talk to the doctors, you speak their language," Nick pointed out. "Harrington, what do you know about venom?"

I suppressed a snort; Nick knew I'd do homework. "There are three types of venomous snakes," I said, sorting the memories of what I'd read into a context. "Opisthoglyphs, which are rear-fanged snakes--their venom flows down grooves in the fangs while they eat and most aren't really dangerous, with the exception of the boomslang and the twig snake. Then there are the proteroglyphs, the fixed-front fang snakes, also known as elapines. This class contains some of the most dangerous snakes in the world--cobras, kraits, mambas, coral snakes. They hang onto you and chew to envenomate." I ignored the 'ew's' from the table. "Solenoglyphs or viperines are the final class. It contains rattlesnakes, vipers, cottonmouths. Their fangs fold to the top of their mouths when not in use, so they can both chew like the proteroglyphs but also open their mouths almost 180 degrees and strike with a stabbing motion. 

"Elopines' venom is neurotoxic, which means that it paralyzes muscles in the respiratory center. Victims die from lack of oxygen, but on the bright side, if they can be put on a respirator, they recover as the venom wears off and there's usually no tissue damage. The viperines--true vipers and pit vipers--are another story. Their venom is hemotoxic, necrotizing, and anticoagulant. A neurotoxin component may be found in rare cases as well. The blood doesn't clot or can be broken down and there's tissue death. There are about twenty different enzymes that can be found in snake venom, although no one snake has all of them, usually between six and twelve of them in most snakes.

"Antivenom or antivenin as it's also called is made from snake venom, which is probably why Sess was hunting them when he was bitten. Hunters get paid per snake. The snakes are milked in the lab and large quantities of the venom are needed. Snakes all want to be left alone, but some of them, like the fer de lance, get really aggressive when provoked into defense. After collection, the venom is diluted and injected into an animal like a goat or horse, which builds up immunity to the venom as the strength of the venom is increased. Then blood proteins--antigens--are harvested, spun down in a centrifuge, and the serum is purified, ready to use. The antivenin works by getting the venom to release the receptor site so that the acetylcholine molecules can act normally, which is to say, making muscle movement possible, and the antivenin and venom are both excreted. Each kind of venom requires its own antivenin.

"If too little antivenin is used, the venom will still be blocking receptor sites, so therapies like respirators will be needed. Too much, and the antivenin will shield the receptor sites like venom, although the antivenin, unlike venom, will eventually release. If this happens, problems like paralysis can occur. Because the amount of venom per bite varies from snake to snake, and even in the same snake in different conditions, administering antivenin is kind of like playing Russian roulette. Each venom has been assigned an LD50 value--"

"What's that?" Peter asked.

"A dose which is lethal in 50% of test subjects. For obvious reasons, LD50 is really a crude measurement when applied to venoms, but it does provide a helpful starting guideline. The inland taipan from Australia can inject up to 110 milligrams of venom per bite, enough to kill a hundred people."

"Jesus," Clint muttered. "I'm never letting my kids go camping."

"It's not all bad," I say. "Snake venom is used to produce medications for blood pressure and clot busters. The really exciting work is being done with cancers and Parkinsons and Alzheimers." I look around the table. Everybody's looking at me with varying descriptions of disgust, even Bruce. "What?" I ask, spreading my hands palm up.

"We need to know what we're up against," Nick says sternly to the table, although it's clear he's still squicked out. 

"We really need to take that guy out," Natasha said to hearty agreement.

"I don't disagree, but I think the other one, whatshis name, Namitar, is the one who's more dangerous. We don't know enough specifics, but if this guy can take weaponized bacteria or viruses and target it to specific individuals... Anthrax. Ebola, even more common diseases like tuberculosis, measles could be fatal or highly incapacitating, and anti-vaxxers are gaining ground... Smallpox might have gone missing after the Soviet Union fell. The news that scary diseases are taking out public figures would be demoralizing and panic-inducing, all without actually producing a public health crisis. And somebody's DNA isn't that hard to get. A hair off a lapel. An accident where somebody is made to scrape the inside of the cheek. 'I'm so sorry, here's a tissue--' and somebody is walking away with epithelials. A dental assistant, even easier," I say.

Steve rubs his forehead. "What a nightmare."

After general agreement, the meeting breaks up. Thor and Sif catch up with me and tell me that Sif's going home to Asgard both because Thor's going to be tied up with this thing and there's a risk for people who are close to the Avengers, and will take my medical records with her. I thank her, tell them that I hope she'll be able to come back soon.

Then it's down to R&D. The heads of the departments are interested in the challenges, focusing on that rather than the ookiness of the biological concerns. "You'll be the easiest to outfit," Cam Morrison said, who'll be working on the filters. "You and the kid in the spider costume. You've already got a full-head covering; maybe we can make your voice distorter into a combo filter thing."

"Bring us your helmet," Brenda Gonzales directed. "We've got a glass with micropores that is very thin. It will protect you from something being thrown on your face through those narrow openings, allow some air circulation. Most stuff won't be able to get through the pores, although it all depends on the size of the particles..." she tunes out.

"I'm not the most important person," I feel obliged to point out.

Marissa Black, the overall head of the department, smiles at me. "No, but you're one of ours." I smile back. "And you won't be upset if we experiment on your gear." I laugh. It's true, I don't mind being a guinea pig.

I head off for my workshop and this time it's back to issues in the new quinjet. I'm making notes about upping filtering and juicing the medical AI up by a lot--maybe have a chemical shower? I'm big on those-- when my computer chimes with a request to Skype from Peter.

"Hey, Pete," I say, accepting instantly.

"Hey, Emma. Listen, Can I ask you a question? Well, more than one," he corrected, and I nodded, attentive.

"I know I'm not the most experienced person on the team, and there's the high school aspect to consider, but I'm worried about our ability to handle this."

"You think you won't be taken seriously if you speak up?"

"No, not really, it's just..." he squirmed. "I have some information, but I'm not sure how helpful it will be."

Ah. "Why don't you try it out on me?" I suggest, and his face brightens, then he looks offscreen and yells he'll be just a minute. "My aunt," he said hurriedly. "There are some supers here in New York I've been working with here and there. One hangs out in Hells Kitchen, so I don't know if he'd be useful unless Night Terror hit the neighborhood. But the other guy is kinda weird. He can, like, do magic. He might be able to help. Just a sec, Aunt May!" he hollers.

"How about I tell Nick, then he can get in touch?" I ask, and Peter nods fast, then signs off.

I smile. He's a good kid. I'm saved from having to call Nick by his appearance on my doorstep.

"You've got a nightingale floor," he said, looking around. "And the special glass. I do not recall signing off on that expense," he said. I feel the intensity of his stare like the eyepatch is staring too.

"I got it because I was willing to be a lab rat," I say. "Every now and then they come outside and throw stuff at it trying to break it. And I paid for my workshop myself, remember. I got a discount on it."

Nick snorts a laugh and looks around. "Cameras, audio, probably alarms," he said.

"Are you asking me or telling me?" I goad him, and he laughs.

"I'll find out your secrets," he said, and I smile. "Tell me what you've got," he says, and I recap my conversations with R&D. Then I tell him about Peter's call. I can see him shuffling through responses until he makes his choice.

"I'll give him a call." he finally says, then shakes his head. "I'm worried about the kid out there without support. There are a lot of weirdos out there, especially in New York. That guy in the bat costume. Wish we could move him out here, but he refuses."

I new how he felt. I thought we had responsibilities toward Peter since Tony had actively recruited him, but there was only so much we could do. His equipment was top-notch, his aunt was a caring guardian, and he had an unusual amount of common sense for a teenaged boy. There was no way we could keep him from being a crime fighter, Tarzaning around New York on spider webs instead of vines.

Nick leaves and I get on the horn with the quinjet engineers, explaining the new challenges. After a lengthy, colorful bout of swearing, they say they'll see what they can do, and I hang up with a smile. My job isn't too bad; I just tell people they need to do the impossible, they swear at me and get to work. 

When we get back to the apartment after dinner, I let the dogs in and take an envelope off the door that's been stuck on with tape. Inside is a clever line drawing of my image. A few lines suggest the figure with helmet, cape fluttering in a breeze, hands in gauntlets on hips. It manages to be both modern and classic. Marketing is going to just eat this up. I go up to the rec room where Steve is at one of the tables, reading reports.

"Thanks," I said, showing the envelope. "This is fantastic."

He pinked a little. "How did you know it was me?"

"You were studying art before the war, weren't you?"

Before he can reply, the envelope is rudely plucked from my hand and Tony inspects the drawing. I drop my head back and address the ceiling. "You're so pushy," I complain. Tony nods, acknowledging this.

"I think I'm jealous," he said, then Sam, Wanda and Vision come over to see too. They examine it and exclaim over it too.

"If being the Sentinel of Liberty ever wears thin, you've got another career lined up," I say under the commentary, and Steve smiles a little.

It's a nice way to end a challenging day.


	14. I want to beat up everybody in Promotions

I was right. Marketing adored it and practically swooned when they found out that Steve had created it. PR's first inclination was to drool and use it in a press release, but then cooler heads prevailed as it was wondered if it might sound like Steve and I were a couple, and they weren't sure if that would be good or bad.

"Part of Captain America's appeal is that the public has never seen him with a woman not in a costume," one of the PR men told me. "He's kind of sexless, which makes him 'safe' for teen crushes and kind of above normal people. He functions much more as a symbol than the rest of the team, more of a symbol than a person, really. Besides, we have Stark as the sexy one. He can get away with screwing anything that moves because he's a billionaire and a man. We could never spin that for Romanov."

One of the Marketing women disagreed. "It could be a really good story if we gave him a girlfriend." She looked at me and flushed. "If he found himself a steady girlfriend," she corrected herself.

The man shook his head. "He's never going to have the white picket fence, 2.5 kids," he objected. "And no offense, Emma, we'd need somebody age appropriate."

The woman bristled. "He's almost a hundred years old. How's that going to work out?"

"You know what I mean," he said, scowling. "He looks young. We'd need something young and sexy, in a wholesome way. Why don't they start recruiting more women?" He studied me. "Well, her face is never seen, so we could probably work with that. Pad her costume in the butt and thighs; she's too androgynous. Get her one of those corset-type breastplates, she'd have the illusion of decent cleavage."

I left as they started to argue. The guy had one good point, though, and I hunted down Nick. When I asked why we didn't have more women on the team, he blinked and asked me to explain. "It is kind of a sausage fest," I said. "I met with Marketing and PR today"--he laughed--"and one of them pointed out that we should recruit some women."

Nick frowned and called up footage of the meeting. He laughed again, but he was serious when he told me that he had his eye out for likely candidates, but for some reason there were more men than women with mutations, and not all the qualified candidates wanted to superhero. Or supervillain, for that matter. I nodded; it wasn't my first career choice either.

I went back to work feeling decidedly disgruntled. There's nothing like a rabid marketing/PR team to make you feel like nothing more than a piece of meat. Later that day I had to fend off the costumers, who had been told I could use some help with my image.

"No, "I finally said. "I will not go out looking like a blow-up doll. I'm not going to have one of those stupid breastplates, and I'm sure as hell not going to pad anything!"

"But Emma, we pad Captain America's shoulders," Paul, our head costumer, complained.

"It's up to him to object to that, but my boobs won't be seen behind the breastplate, and I work hard to keep my figure. I'm not going to stuff my pants to look sexier." Paul followed me out of my workshop as I walked briskly toward the caf, hoping to shake him off. It didn't work, and he kept badgering me.

"You're not giving us anything to work with!" he wailed just outside the doors. He grabbed my arm to keep me in place, embarrassing me as a crowd from those entering and leaving the building stopped to listen. "Just look at you! Nobody can see your face, your costume is safe and boring, your figure is slight. Look at Widow! She's got a perfect sexy figure and isn't afraid to show it off! You should be more like her." I was torn between wanting to rip his face off and bursting into tears. I hadn't felt this bad about my body since I was a teenager, and I kind of hated him for it.

"You listen to me," I said as quietly as I could manage, my cheeks burning red. "I don't work in this circus so that some guy can look at a picture of me in a costume and jerk off. I do work that matters. You will make me the items I specify, exactly as I specify, or I will find somebody who will." I wanted to get Mr Pointy so bad. Instead, I pushed through the crowd and took a walk in the woods, Sigurd and Torburn hurrying to catch up. I'd lost my appetite.

I came back after dark, calmer, and made myself a sandwich in the kitchen before going down to hang out with Loki. He may be kind of evil, but he's no fool and he's a pretty keen observer, and I ended up telling him about the whole mess. It was kind of nice to talk to somebody about it how didn't have a stake in the game.

"I could talk to this Paul," he offered, and I laughed a little.

"Thanks, but no," I said. "If people don't stop bugging me, I'm just not going to play along anymore. I've taken direction. I had to scrap the comfortable chain mail because they didn't like it. It didn't 'fit my image.' Well, my image is what I say it is. If they won't take what I'm willing to give, I could call a press conference and have a public dialog about all this fuckery. I'm really tired of hearing that I'm not good enough. It's not just this afternoon, although this was the most I've heard this stuff at one time."

Loki smiled. "My dear Emma, you have the soul of an anarchist. You are lovely and much more than your appearance would suggest. Wear what you want." I wasn't sure it was a good idea to take image or career counseling from a god of chaos and trickery, but it helped to feel that somebody was on my side.

I was up early the next morning and got some work in before I had to report to Cap at the obstacle course. He let me go over the course in peace, but took me to task over my confrontation with Paul. "He's just trying to do his job," he said sternly. "It's not pleasant to have your body critiqued, I know, but you shouldn't have argued with him in public."

I wiped the sweat off my face with a towel and stared at him. "He made it public. His job is to provide me with clothing that will enable me to do my job. Functional clothing. It is not his place to comment on my appearance or how the clothing makes me look. And with all due respect, Captain America, when the doctors were classifying you as 4F, it was because your health problems and frail body didn't quality you to be enlisted. It had nothing to do with making you look like something that some guy wants to bang. And while your costumes are padded and give you an exaggerated masculine effect, there is the argument that the padding provides protection. The alterations to the costuming suggested for me have no practical purpose. Padding my boobs is strictly cosmetic." He looked frustrated. "All this came about because Marketing and PR were trying to decide whether to let it be known that you did the little drawing for me. They thought it might look like we were a couple and weren't sure if that was something they wanted to encourage. Then it was said that a big part of your appeal is that you're functionally sexless as Captain America."

I heard Tony laugh behind me. Steve looked pissed. "They like that," I say. "It makes you more a symbol than a person. Plus they have Tony for sex appeal."

"Did they really say that?" Steve wanted to know, his blue eyes glacial, as Tony said the same thing almost in unison but in a different tone.

"Yes," I said to Steve, then to Tony, "Actually, they said it was ok that you were a slut because you're rich and a man." Both of them looked pissed then, which was fine by me. Misery loves company. When Steve curtly told me to go up the rope to hit the bell at the top, I shinnied up most of the way, then inverted, kicking the bell (I'd seen it on an obstacle course race on TV), went hand over hand down the rope a little way, then dropped ten or twelve feet to the floor. Steve looked cross.

"That's not how you're supposed to do it," he lectured me.

"Then you should have been more specific. You told me to climb up and hit the bell."

Tony came in on my side, and then it degenerated into squabbling. I threw up my hands. "This isn't productive," I said, and stomped out to shower and go to work.

I took a late dinner, hoping that everybody would have cleared out, and was surprised when Natasha joined me. "Well, the boys are certainly in an uproar," she observed as she took a bite of salmon. I shrugged. "Cap and Stark went to Fury, so he had to pacify them, then the other boys wanted to know what was being said about them, so Fury had his hands full. He called the heads of Promotion into his office and told them that we weren't storylines to be manipulated and to stop objectifying us."

I snorted. "But that's kind of what they're being paid for. All that will have done is to make them mad and embarrassed, and they'll yell at their departments, and they'll be mad at me because I got this whole thing started. All that will change is that they won't be so up front around me."

Natasha shrugged. "It really doesn't bother me," she said frankly. "I was trained as a spy and assassin and how to use T&A for my own ends. But you're different, and it shouldn't matter what you look like."

"They should be grateful I don't wear a tent," I said testily. She laughed. "It's a sensitive topic for me. I was a beanpole through most of high school. It must come from my father's genes because my mom and grandma were both curvy. I hate feeling like I'm deficient." Natasha nodded. I changed the subject. "Actually, if they weren't being such jerks, I was going to ask about pants options. The leather was a bit much this summer. It wasn't pleasant to be sauteed in my own clothes."

"Linen would be nice," she agreed and I smiled. "Don't cut off your nose to spite your face. If you need an alternative, let them know what you need. You still have veto power. They're not going to be able to make you go out in a swimsuit and boots." We both made faces at the thought. "Do your own designs. You could go full-on Spartan for the summer, with one of those war skirts. With an underskirt, of course. No point in flashing your panties. Maybe something more medieval-inspired for winter. Make them distinctive and unique and you'll find Promotions more willing to compromise, after Fury's talking-to." She had some good points, and I thought that if I struck while Promotions was chastened I would get more of what I wanted than if I waited until they regrouped.

That night I hit the internet. I'd thought about what Natasha had said, and she was right. It wouldn't hurt to bend a little, make everybody happy. On my terms. So I Googled armor and found some looks I liked, thinking a little outside the box, but I didn't want to make copies, and I'm no artist. I took a big gulp of pride and went to the rec room. No Steve, so with a certain amount of trepidation, went to his room. He came to the door at my knock, in jeans and (oh, this was priceless) a Hulk t-shirt. He casually crossed his arms over the image.

"I wanted to apologize for earlier," I said.

"I shouldn't have been so quick to judge," he said, sighing, then opened his door. It was the first time I'd been in his room. It was comfortable in a masculine way, with distressed leather upholstery on the Morris chairs, books, a record player with plenty of jazz albums as well as a more modern sound system. "Sometimes I'm not very good about putting myself in somebody else's shoes."

"I have an ulterior motive," I confessed, and he smiled.

"I thought you might," he said, gesturing to the papers I was carrying. I handed them over and explained what I was after. He pulled out a sketchbook and box of colored pencils. We worked together as he sketched and made changes, and by the end, he had some really great looks.

The next morning, I went to Marketing, to the woman I disliked least, and showed her the sketches.

The first was a summer look, with bronze armor that covered my torso, but the armor was flattened over my upper chest, providing some additional contouring. It covered essentially what a tank top would and left my shoulders and arms bare. Because of my work and the physical training, I had good muscle definition. The cape attached to the armor still, and I kept the helmet with the stiff horsehair crest. There was a linen skirt in a cobalt that matched the cape with a war skirt over top and plated boots that looked like greaves. I wasn't a field agent, so the armor was mostly for decoration. The lady cooed over the design and went on to the next, which was a look based on the look of the White Knight in Alice in Wonderland and had a helmet similar to the first one, only without a crest and with a triangular shape to the part that covered the forehead. There were tight pants underneath the intricate, chain mail skirt, and the cape was to be worn with it as well. The third was a long sleeved chain mail shirt with a hood that came down to my thighs almost like a minidress; it was to be worn with a bodysuit since you could see through it. The woman was so excited and called for a meeting immediately. I got up at once.

"Um, I'll want the drawings back," I said, and she nodded, smiling, then scanned them into her computer.

"The digital images will be more useful anyway," she said, handing them back.

That afternoon was the annual Halloween party in the lab complex; I was welcome, and wandered in and out like everybody else. There was a team meeting that I had to attend, so I took a break from the "Mad Scientist" themed extravaganza with reluctance.

"A few things to attend to," Nick said, smiling slightly. "Then you can all get back to what you were doing. First of all, Promotions wanted to apologize for yesterday's uproar. They will be working to change their culture." 

"I feel a little left out," Bruce said mildly. "A little objectification would be good for my ego."

I grinned at him. "Be sure to let them know," I said. "I'm sure they'd be happy to outfit the Other Guy in a G-string." He blanched, and Natasha laughed in delight.

Nick got everybody calmed down again, and reported that there was a potential line on Night Terror down on the Yucatan peninsula; he was working on getting eyes and ears on them and we should be prepared to go on short notice.

"Finally, we have a rather...unusual request. Promotions would very much like us to do this, but it's up to you. The team has received an invitation to appear at Comic Con next summer," he said, and I felt my eyes go big.

"San Diego?" Peter said over Skype breathlessly, and Nick nodded.

"A panel appearance, autographs if you'd like to do it," he said. "And you'd be given passes for the rest of the event if you'd like to stay and explore."

"Oh, geeze, I'm dying," I said, fanning myself. "I'm so in." Peter was right behind me, and Scott thought it sounded like fun too. The others were more neutral, but the idea that there would be a whole lot of people in costumes more outlandish than ours was a big selling point, and everybody ended up agreeing to go, although Bruce just wanted to go and check it out. Nobody really wanted the Hulk to show up, so that was fine with everybody.

"Then I should also tell you that Promotions wants you all to have new costumes, specifically for the event," Nick said evilly, looking at me, and I shot him a look. I bet one of my new ones would work just fine. Then he dismissed us, and I went back to the party for awhile. Toward the end of the work day, somebody brought out a karoke machine and some hard cider that had been made in one of the labs. I was a little foggy when the party broke up and I ambled back to the caf for dinner. The dogs had had a good time too, lots of people to admire and play with them; they ate fast and headed home while I was still eating. Tony, Sam, and Steve joined me and Tony noticed immediately that I was tipsy. Sam teased me, and then it was time for the team party.

It was a lot like how we usually hung out, just with some decorations and streamers, and there were treats laid out, including caramel apples and gourmet chocolates from the pastry chef. It was fun and relaxing, and I went home feeling pretty mellow and happy.

On my door was another envelope labeled "Trick or Treat." The first page was a note, explaining that there were a couple of ideas for a ComicCon outfit based on more of a fantasy aesthetic. I looked at the designs, and I thought my eyes were going to pop out.


	15. Into the hurricane

The next morning we had a group email from Promotions gushing over our decision to attend Comic Con (duties permitting, of course! But we should make every effort to put off fighting the bad guys to attend!) and telling us that we should all make a good impression with new, eye-catching costumes. They'd also be working with us in the months with public speaking and making presentations. Let's put our best foot forward! Help and advice with costumes is available and we are encouraged to take advantage of a consultation!

I smirked. Consultation, my left butt cheek. I had choices that would make them weep with joy and gratitude. And best of all, there was no "figure emphasis" in any of the sketches. Bwahaha!

I went to breakfast feeling pretty darn awesome. Natasha and Wanda joined me.

"Did you see that email from Promotions?" Wanda asked, hushed. "I felt they were specifically targeting me with that line about encouraging us to get a consultation for the costume." I snorted a laugh.

"I felt that way too," I said, biting into a sausage with relish.

"You don't seem too upset," Natasha observed, studying me. I beamed.

"I am not. I have some amazing ideas. Totally different from anything I've ever worn, in real life, even." The ladies leaned in. I did too. "Talk to Steve." I sat back. They did too, looking puzzled and bemused.

"Why Steve?" Wanda asked as we ate.

"He's got an art background," I explained. "And he has a serious eye for fashion. He might actually be wasted as Captain America." They gaped at me. "He helped me design some new looks for my regular costume and came up with some amazing ideas for Comic Con. You will not regret asking him for help. He even does enough with branding to keep Promotions happy but it's not heavy handed."

"I feel like livestock when they talk about branding," Natasha complained, and we talked about clothes and complained about Promotions for the rest of breakfast. Natasha was apparently the only one of us they were happy with; they were bugging Wanda to reveal more of her figure and were urging her to wear more supportive bras.

"We're the three bears of the Avengers," I said sarcastically. "Too little--" I pointed at myself, "Too much," I pointed at Wanda, "And just right," I said, pointing to Natasha. They burst out laughing.

I was doing the agility course today and weights after. In the weight room, I thanked him profusely for the new sketches, trying not to gush too much. It was hard.

"Is that possibly why Wanda and Natasha asked if I'd sketch something for them?" he asked in bemusement.

Yikes. It never occurred to me to check with him to see if he'd mind me bragging about his sketches. "I'm sorry, I should have asked you if you'd mind," I said, stricken, putting the barbell back on the stand and sitting up.

He smiled at me. "It's just...surprising." He paused. "But you really liked them, right? You're not just being polite, are you?"

"I love them," I say immediately. "And Promotion just about---died happy when I showed them your sketches for my regular costumes. Their heads are probably going to explode when I show them the ones for Comic Con." I was going to say that the people in Promotion had had pretty much had orgasms when they saw that they had so much more to work with, but I didn't want to make Steve blush.

He relaxed. "Good." He hesitated. "When I watched that meeting, I felt... It was depressing to have them talk about us like we're all just flawed pieces of meat they have to deal with and make better. Like what we do doesn't matter, just what we look like. And to have them talk about you like that. It was degrading. So I wanted you to have something beautiful and unique. Show them that you don't have to look like a pin up girl." I couldn't help smiling at his cultural reference.

Tony and Clint saunter up. "I hear somebody's launching a second career as a fashion designer," Tony said. Steve did blush.

"When you see what he can do, you're going to be begging him to design one for you," I say casually, and lay back on the bench, ready for another set of bench presses.

"What? Really?" Clint said, perking up. I shut them out and focused on my form. It was an increase day and I didn't want to embarrass myself by getting stuck and needing my spotter.

"I don't beg," Tony informed me when I tuned back in.

"Practice," I said, laughing. "If I were Steve, I'd expect some world-class grovelling. Prepare to prostrate yourself, Tony. Wait til you see. He helped me with some new costumes for work. I've never seen anybody in Promotions that happy." I paused to consider. "Then again, part of it was that I'm getting a new look--"

"Or three," Steve mumbled.

"Or three, so that was part of it. A small part." Clint eyed Steve with speculation. "If he plays his cards right, he'll eventually have a museum exhibition of his work," I say. I look at Steve. "When you get that request, you can borrow anything of mine that you want, but I want it back."

Tony narrowed his eyes. "You're serious."

"As a heart attack," I tell him. "His designs are couture for superheroes." Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Steve actually wiggling in embarrassment.

After working out, I trundle off to my workshop, planning to blow off my actual work and work out how to make that hooded mail shirt. Mail's not hard to make, you make the rings by wrapping the right gauge wire around a dowel with the right diameter, then cut up the coil so that you have individual rings. Then you just put them together; for the shirt, I'll want to solder the rings closed. I turned on my computer just to check the schedule and make sure I wasn't blowing off anything that I really needed to accomplish, but I was in the clear. I'd start with making some test swatches to be sure I had the right look.

I was working on the third sample when I got an email alert with an urgent message. When I read it, I hit the 'autoclose' feature on my workshop that would turn everything off for me, roll down the metal shutters to secure the premises and let everybody know I wasn't around, and automatically lock everything down. I ran straight to the conference room and dropped into a chair. Nick waited for the last stragglers, then turned on the 3D projector.

"We have received confirmation that Night Terror is setting up shop on the Yucatan peninsula," he said, bringing up a map of the area. "This particular spot is sparsely inhabited, which is good for us--" heads nodded and Bruce looked relieved "But the problem is that there's a weak hurricane heading for the area. Normally I'd wait to send you in, but it's not clear if the group knows they've been noticed. This is the best chance we've had or are likely to have for some time, so it's got to be now. We can't take the chance of them vanishing into the wind." He went on with the details of the operation, noting each of our roles. It's going to be wet and muddy, and although we field test our tech extensively, there's nothing like an op to make waterproofing fail. I make notes about what I think I'll need to bring along. "Additionally, the new quinjet has been prototyped and tested, so you'll be taking that one. It has upgrades that will be useful for the mission, including enhanced medical capability and it will fly higher and faster than before. It's equipped with stealth, so you should be able to land without being detected." Nick looked around the table. "Go suit up. You leave in twenty."

We scurried for the door and assembled in the hangar. This would be Mr Pointy's first outing and I brought both my fans with me, now named Martha and DB. I wasn't thrilled about going down to a hurricane zone, but there was nothing to be done with that except wish the baddies had waited just a few more weeks until hurricane season was over. Maybe the hurricane would lose strength and become a tropical storm.

"Nope," said Clint on the way down. "Hurricane Hugo (he pronounced it 'Yugo,' dropping the H) is showing signs of strengthening." I cracked up.

"What's so funny?" Steve wanted to know.

"Yugos were these crappy, cheap cars produced during the latter years of the Cold War," I explained.

Bruce laughed. "I remember those. One of my classmates in grad school had one. Somebody once said that it had the appearance of something built at gunpoint. It was always breaking, something always falling off. We used to tease him that the rear window defroster was to keep your hands warm as you pushed it." Everybody laughed.

It was the last time anybody had a chuckle. Once we landed, the difficulty of everything ratcheted up. The weather was foul and getting worse, and we couldn't find the target compound. We had stealth on the quinjet, but they apparently had it on their compound. Our electronics and mechanics went on the fritz and Tony and I were kept busy fixing things. Even his suit had problems. Tony's temper got more volatile, but he never snapped at me, even when I was having trouble figuring out how to fix something and he had to keep helping me. "Damn it, Tony, I'm a metallurgist, not an engineer," I muttered as he quickly diagrammed a fiendishly complicated mechanism. He quirked a smile at me and nudged me with his elbow. Scott was pressed into service too, both as an electrical engineer and as Ant-Man to do diagnostics in situ.

The only good news was that the government evacuated the few residents ahead of the hurricane, and we didn't think the baddies knew we were there yet. It was an occasion almost worthy of champagne when we discovered the lair. Scott called it a nest of filthy vermin, but then his suit was glitchy and he had to stay out of the weather which meant that Sam carried him around in his Ant Man size in a pocket. I went out to the observation point on the site and saw the surveillance equipment outside from the heat signatures, some odd structures we couldn't identify but figured they had something to do with defensive measures, and by watching the heat signatures move around inside long enough, had a pretty good idea of the layout of the lair. There was one building off by itself, set into the earth; we figured that this was the lab for Namitar; I described an unfamiliar apparatus that Tony said would superheat the lab and destroy it. The main complex had a room at then end of a long corridor which was probably the toxins lab. There was a bedroom with bunkbeds, a locker-room style bathroom, kitchen, and a large all-purpose room where Ballista had target practice and Nepthys and Necros sparred.

I watched the compound for several days, noting movements, until we had their routine figured out. The others scouted exits and entrances and confirmed that these were the people we were looking for, since I could only see heat, not what the people looked like. Other Avengers scouted the terrain and uncovered a garage where there was a semi for transporting their equipment and a few ATVs. I retreated with my guard to the quinjet after we had the information we needed, and we planned our assault.

We waited for the hurricane to reach us so we'd have maximum natural cover. It had gained strength as Clint had predicted; it was a category two and extremely unpleasant to be in. After verifying that there were five people in the compound, my part was over, and Bruce escorted me back to the quinjet where we listened to the progress of the op. Early on, the visuals shorted out, so we were stuck with audio. In stage one, they decommissioned the vehicles in the garage and cut power to the infectious diseases lab. Hawkeye triggered the destruct mechanism from the doorway with an arrow. Then they converged on the main building and forced the entry.

That's when things went right to hell in a flaming mine cart.

The heat signatures in the main room belonged to locals who, it turned out, had been offered a safe place to ride out the storm. We had no idea where the members of Night Terror were. Bruce and I stared at each other, aghast. The team rifled the compound, sealing off the venoms lab and using explosives. I slapped my head. "I didn't see any heat signatures for snakes," I said through gritted teeth. "How was he going to work without the venom sources?"

"Shit," Bruce said. "We all missed that. Are these really the people we're looking for or are they some dumb bastards who were hired to be in disguise for a few days?" Bruce was clearly agitated. He almost never swears. I shivered as another storm wave hit the quinjet, missed the thin electronic whine of the door lock.

"Well, isn't this cozy," a jeering voice said as a man stepped in. The lights came up to reveal Sess. He grinned and flung something at us; it was a very upset snake. I batted it across the room with one of my fans. A pissed off snake was not in my plans for the evening, yet here it was. And Bruce was having trouble with his equilibrium. He whipped around to look at me and I knew he was losing his fight. I ran for Mr Pointy and hit the button to open the cargo ramp of the quinjet.

Bruce gave in and the Hulk roared, a terrifying sound echoing off the metal interior of the jet. Sess sensibly ran, pursued by the Hulk. I immediately closed the ramp and poked my head outside to check the door lock. It was biometric, and I had to tamp down the panic.

None of my teammates or their parts were on the ground outside, but there was a device covering the lock; I pried it off with Mr Pointy and triple bagged it in secure biohazard bags for later examination. I closed the door and jumped onto a seat while I scanned for the snake's heat signature, frowning when I didn't find it. Then I found out why; apparently the Hulk squashed it on his way out. I took a good look at it before I scraped it up with Mr Pointy and tossed it outside. Its body matched the photograph of a fer de lance that I'd seen while researching snake venom. I shivered; it was very bad news and really cranky when disturbed, so while I felt badly that it had been used as a weapon, I was grateful that the Hulk had taken care of it for me.

It was creepy as anything, alone in the jet. The radio came back in; they had custody of Nepthys and Namitar; the others were in the wind and they were heading back with their prisoners. Bursts of static interrupted the transmissions, and I couldn't seem to call out to tell them what happened.

Through the static, a threatening, dangerous sound and a lot of shouting. I listened closely. Landslide. And somebody was missing. I grabbed the remote and charged out. I headed back toward the compound, slipping in the mud, battered by the wind and rain.

I found myself face down in the ooze, tackled by...somebody. I don't have time for this. I struggled until I was jerked up, then smacked the hand holding me hard with Martha; the person howled and fell back. I turned, and in one smooth motion, shoved Mr Pointy into my attacker's chest. I shivered as I felt the metal grate against bone, but I was merciless. My teammates needed me. I left the person in the mud and tried to run.

When I found them, just over the next rise, I was able to locate some heat in the collapsed hillside. Sam and Tony reached the area first; it was too dangerous for normal flight, but Tony was able to excavate and used his thrusters to pull Steve free. Iron Man and War Machine kept low as they took Cap to the quinjet, the rest of us following as quickly as we could. It was exhausting to fight the mud and the rain and the wind, but I was in range just in time to hit the remote for the jet and the ramp began to open.

When the rest of us straggled in, they had Steve on the table and the AI starting its scan. We closed the ramp behind us and Sam took over at the table as our resident real medic. Scott and Wanda secured the two prisoners in the special seats by the tailgate that had Hulk-grade restraints for arms and legs built in. Namitar didn't look too upset, and I asked if he'd been searched. Jim and Tony exchanged looks and dragged him back outside. In short order, they dragged him back, naked, with his clothing in more biohazard bags, tossing him a blanket before restraining him again.

"Where's Bruce?" Natasha asked me worriedly, and I explained what happened. Tony immediately took charge of the device I'd found. The rest of us waited silently as Sam finished clearing Steve's airway and got him breathing again. Finally the AI pronounced that he was stable but would need to see a doctor.

"We can't leave for about an hour," Clint said grimly. "That's when the eye of the hurricane should be over us and we can fly. Bruce has an hour to make it back," he told Natasha, and she nodded.

"Do you want to go look?" I asked her after a couple of minutes, and she nodded.

"I'm not kidding. You've got to be back by the time the eye comes around," Clint said warningly. "We have to leave, and it's going to be a rough ride as it is." I nodded, and Natasha and I went out.

We went out in concentric circles with the quinjet in the middle, and we heard the Hulk before we saw him, throwing a downed tree aside, briefly illuminated by lightning. We slogged toward him and stood a respectful distance away. He turned suddenly--it was freaky how fast something that big could move sometimes--and bellowed, dragging something with him as he walked toward us. He dropped the thing when he reached Natasha, and as she began talking him down, I looked down and saw Sess in the muck. His chest had a severe wound, and I blanched. "I did that," I said quietly. Natasha made me repeat it louder, then shrugged it off.

"He'd have killed you if he could have," she said shrugging. "Don't worry."

Soon Bruce was back with us, and it didn't take long to decide to leave the body and notify the authorities. When we got back to the quinjet, we found that Scott and Tony had managed to fix whatever had been wrong with the radio, and we'd be able to communicate with authorities soon. Everybody had changed out of their suits, leaving them in a pile dripping through the grating of the deck. I stripped off my suit, surely ruined by the mud, made sure my weapons were secured, toweled off, and dressed in dry clothes. There wasn't a lot of conversation; we were all so very tired. We ate and drank to help restore our energy while we waited. Steve was awake but wiped out.

The eye of the hurricane came around a little faster than predicted, and we lifted off immediately. Hawkeye had not undersold the quality of the flight; it was really rough even in the eye and ascent must have been about 80 degrees. I wasn't the only one extremely grateful as we shot out of the hurricane and into calmer skies. Hawkeye got us stable and level, and we arrowed for home. It was a couple hours-long flight, so I took a nap. I was absolutely exhausted.

I woke up on the descent, having been leaning on Sam, who woke up when I moved. There wasn't any conversation when we landed; security was there to take charge of the prisoners, and medical was there for Steve. Nick was also there, and we went to the conference room for a quick debriefing. He recorded our statements, then we stumbled off for a real rest. I took a quick, really hot shower and fell into bed, the dogs laying down beside me. When I woke up, it was about eight in the evening. I was still tired, but felt a lot better. I went for a late dinner in the caf, then Nick called me up for a more extensive debriefing. I was the first one to wake up. No surprise; I'd been in the jet for most of the excitement.

After Nick and I finished, I went down to medical. Steve had been admitted. "It's just for the night for observation," he said, and coughed suddenly. I handed him a tissue. I told him to let me know if he needed anything, patting his hand, and he closed his eyes again.

I went out to find a doctor. The one I found was familiar to me; I'd worked with her a bit when they were having me root around with the DNA and she was both nice and very competent. "We're a little concerned," Dr Harris admitted. "Based on his past performance, we'd expect that he'd have bounced pretty much back by now." I frowned.

"He just coughed," I said. "He wasn't coughing on the jet." Dr Harris frowned too and bustled off to Steve's room.

I loitered until she came back. "I know it's gross," she said, "but if you could take a look and see if there's any microbes in there?..."

I took the tissue and dialed down enough to see the microscopic. I almost dropped the tissue. "Yuck. It's teeming,' I said tersely. She told me to wait in her office after washing my hands thoroughly and took off. I did as I was told, and when she came back, she had me describe what I'd seen, then showed me microphotographs of different disease-causing bacteria and viruses. I found two that looked right. One was kind of fuzzy things that looked like slices of potatoes, the other one showed capsules.

"Influenza," she said shortly to the first photograph. "Bacterial pnemonia," she said to the second.

"He was absolutely fine earlier today," I protested. "He should have showed some signs for this high a concentration." She looked at me hard, thinking.

"Shit," I said in a higher pitched voice than my usual alto, and told her about Namitar's lab. She echoed the curse, and hustled me out to an exam room and took some blood samples since I wasn't coughing. They'd examine them professionally, of course, but I took a quick look and didn't see anything. I was issued a mask and a warning to keep to myself as much as possible until they figured out what was going on. When I left, she was calling Nick.

On the way back to my room, I detoured to the custodial supply room and liberated paper towels, a box of bin liners, and a can of Lysol. I planned to clean every hard surface I touched. But honestly, the more I thought about it, the more I was convinced Namitar was behind Steve's illness. Somewhere he must have gotten DNA. That stunt with the locals showed that they knew we were there.

I detoured once more and went to the security station, where they refused to let me see the prisoners. Finally they brought the ranking security officer out, who listened to what I had to say, and promised to interrogate Namitar about it. Then he showed me the door. Balked and furious, I finally went home. A message from Nick was waiting for me; we were all confined to our rooms until further notice and noncompliance would be addressed prejudicially. Good that I got my running around done, then. We were to call the caf when we were hungry; they would deliver our meal in disposable containers. When we were done, we were to place the containers and utensils in the bags that would be provided with each meal, leave them outside, and they would be incinerated. I rolled my eyes. Talk about overkill. A firm injunction not to come into contact with anyone was added at the end. It looked like the pups were going to have to go out on their own. I hit the internet to do some research.


	16. "It's a trap!"

Well, the good news is that the incubation period for the flu is one to four days, average being two, so we won't have long to wait to see if anybody else gets sick. I wonder if you can become sick from a sickness that is specifically engineered to infect one person. Guess we'll be finding out.

The pneumonia thing really bothers me. Flu would be bad enough, but the pneumonia, too? Somebody has a powerful hate on for Captain America, and who knows if it's this Namitar himself or somebody he's working for?

In college, I took a microbiology class because I was tired of everybody telling me what I was missing. My professor had been a public health nurse for years, and we got a lot of stories about disease. I'd kept up with the interest by reading books published on the topic. There are a lot of "biographies" of diseases like smallpox, rabies, and yellow fever, biographies of public health doctors from the CDC, and some that are targeted to a specific outbreak of disease, like the London cholera epidemic that was figured out by Dr John Snow. You'll find accounts in a lot of them that reference the Spanish flu epidemic at the end of WWI, which was quite a deadly pandemic. One of the things that was particularly horrible about it was that unlike most flu outbreaks that kill the young and the elderly, this strain killed young, healthy adults. Flu can kill because it causes the body to over-produce defenses that are specific to viruses, including cytokines, and this energetic response leaves a person open to opportunistic bacterial infections. Like pneumonia. If there's a lung infection, the cytokines can be produced in such quantities as the cytokines signal for far more than is needed that it creates what is called a cytokine storm. This cytokine storm causes inflammation, which can be permanently damaging and can cause the lungs to become blocked, preventing oxygen delivery to the body. The body's defenses end up suffocating the person. And that was why I was so worried about the pneumonia.

I just hoped the Super Soldier serum would provide enough protection.

I called the caf and had a meal sent over for me and the dogs. Then I got a Skype request from Peter. Nick hadn't been really informative when he told Peter about the situation, so I filled him in on what was known to date. I didn't mention the research I'd done; he could do some research if he wanted, but there was no point in indulging in speculation. The med staff would be doing everything they could. I promised to keep him posted and warned him in the most serious way to watch out since we didn't know if Namitar was working on his own.

I spent a lot of time pacing around. There wasn't anything decent on TV and I couldn't concentrate on a book. After dinner, Nick sent out an update. It wasn't good. The medical staff were doing everything they could, but Steve was just holding on.

A couple hours later, there was a terse update to the update. Tony had also been admitted to the clinic. His symptoms were similar to Steve's, but not the same. The next morning brought news that Tony had been diagnosed with yellow fever. Natasha was in with cholera, and Sam and Jim were being admitted. By the middle of the afternoon, only Bruce and I were still healthy. Sam had typhoid, Jim leishmaniasis. Scott, dysentery. Thor had malaria. Clint had something called Chagas disease. I had to look that up along with leishmaniasis. Wanda was a curious maybe-miss. She had been diagnosed with Lassa, but had only very mild weakness and sore throat; she'd been pumped full of Ribavirin and was responding well. Vision was another anomaly; he had a lot of dengue, but it was just sitting in him, not affecting him. A huge advantage of having a constructed body, I guess. The numbers were stable, so they were filtering his blood to remove the disease.

Our heroes were falling.

I got a phone call from Dr Harris, asking if I could come over to the clinic. I messaged Nick to let him know that I'd been requested, and high-tailed it over. Dr Harris met me at the door and we went to her office. She looked harried beyond belief. A new man joined us. I'd never met him before, but he looked even worse than Dr Harris. She introduced him as Raj Rai, and he was the new director of our new Infectious Diseases unit. He'd been hired from the CDC as the staff had been concerned that we might drag some diseases back with us from our missions and had started last week. He was the only member of the ID unit. 

"Heck of a welcome," I said glumly.

Dr Rai quickly filled me in; the medical staff firmly believed that the diseases had been genetically modified to target one victim and supercharge the microbes, making the infectious stage shorter and the symptoms amplified. The variety of diseases seemed to bear this out, and I nodded. They were working on tearing the microbes apart to see what made them so dangerous, but of course, this would take time.

"We feel like most of the Avengers will recover in time; we are providing all the supportive therapies that exist and every medication that helps," Dr Harris said, taking over. I nodded; nobody would ever accuse our medical staff of half-assing anything. "There's no doubt that you all walked into a trap. We've taken samples from your clothing and have a team down on site investigating. The problem is with Steve Rogers. He's the only one who has two targeted diseases, and we believe that without the protection that the serum provides he would have been dead shortly after the symptoms hit. We thought about asking Thor if he could be treated in Asgard, but we don't know if he would survive the trip. We have no idea what forces are at work in that transport beam thing he uses. The problem is in the lungs. Steve's's immune response is so great it's causing damage. We're aspirating his lungs to keep him from drowning, but we don't know how long we can keep it up. We've got Wanda, Vision, and Thor just in standard rooms because Wanda is doing so well and Thor's physiology is just different enough from ours that the malaria can't get a good grip on him. Same for the Vision. Natasha, Scott, Sam, and Clint are in a BioSafety level 2 room, as are Tony and Jim. Steve is in the level four chamber. These assignments are for the protection of the patients, since it doesn't look like they're contagious. We want to make sure that there are no opportunistic infections as they get better. Steve just cannot risk being exposed to anything more, so he gets the full treatment: everybody who goes in has to go through the showers and change clothing and wear the spaceman suits, the sealed positive-pressure supplied-air suit. He's in a sealed room with a highly filtered ventilation system." She sighed. "I never actually thought we'd have to use that room. Essentially, what we'd like you to do is go in and see if you can't do something about those cytokines."

We talked it over; my ability to move things around is very small scale, but I would try to corral the mass of cytokynes and direct them to the site where Steve's lungs were being aspirated. So we went to the end of the building, down a fairly long corridor, and to the BSL-4 lab, which had been converted to Steve's sick room. I went through the changing room, personal shower, second changing room, donned the space suit, and went through the chemical shower. The room was cool to help control Steve's temperature. I thought I was prepared, but I wasn't. He looked thin and wasted and was unconscious, surrounded by equipment I didn't want to look at. I sat in the chair that was waiting and took a look into his lungs. The congestion was terrible and I didn't feel like I'd done much although I had a bad headache at the end of it. The doctors were encouraging, saying every little bit helps, but this was really marginal. What was needed was to disrupt the signaling that the cytokines were doing, and I had no idea how that could be accomplished. After I went through the disinfectant/shower procedure, I trudged over to find Nick; Dr Rai had told me that there was no point to a quarantine.

"Two things," I said as I dropped into the chair across his desk. He looked at me attentively, his eye bright with interest. "First, that guy that Pete told us about. The magician. We need to try to get in touch with him." Nick pulled out his phone to text Peter, who called back immediately and promised to see if his friend/acquaintance/wizard would help us. "Second, you need to get Bucky out here." Nick gaped and I got up and left.

I didn't sleep well that night, but when I got up before dawn, I found that Nick and Peter had acted fast. I stood by Nick as the quinjet landed and three figures emerged. The first one out was Bucky, and he restrained himself only with titanic effort as Peter introduced us to Doctor Strange. He was tall and thin, with dark hair peppered with white and a supercilious look on his face. He was also in a thin black unitard and the most outlandish cape: a high pointed collar, black on the outside, red lining, and a wide gold-patterned band of decoration around the edges of it all. Bucky didn't wait for anything more than the bare introductions before he grabbed my hand and towed me in the direction of the clinic. I took the lead inside and Dr Harris, who was looking progressively more drawn, nodded when I introduced Bucky to her. Then she sighed and made him promise to follow instructions to the letter, taking us back down to the sealed room and sent us through. I hooked up Bucky's air hose first and let him have some time with Steve by himself, watching through the sealed window until Doctor Strange entered the room. It was a very appropriate name. He literally floated into the room from the shower. How ostentatious.

He efficiently put on the last space suit and hooked up to the air supply, gesturing to me curtly. "I want you to monitor the patients and tell me what you see," he said imperiously, and barely waited until I spun my sight down enough to see the cytokines...and the damage that the inflammation was doing. Then I felt a brusque presence in my mind, studying what I was seeing, then it lifted. I kept my temper; the doctor looked pensive, then his face cleared and he floated a little higher, flinging his arms wide and closing his eyes. It wasn't nearly as impressive in the space suit instead of his costume. Bucky gave him a 'you've got to be kidding me' look before returning his attention to his best friend. I concentrated again and saw what I perceived to be a green energy move through Steve's lungs. It wasn't hindering Steve's labored breathing any, so I kept my peace. I could sense that the energy was muffling the signals sent between the cells. I broke up a small clog in the drain in the right lung, and the fluid gently trickled out, taking the ineffective cytokines with it. "You may go for now," Doctor Strange said abruptly. "You may return later this afternoon to confirm the efficacy of the treatment for the other physicians." I turned for the door. "You too," he said to Bucky, whose face darkened. But he got up and came with me.

I stopped by Dr Rai's office to tell him what I'd seen, and he nodded. We made arrangements for me to come back at 5 in the afternoon, and we left the clinic. "Who did this to him?" Bucky said, his rage simmering like tar. So I told him the basics from our mission.

"The guy is here?" he asked harshly, pouncing on the detail.

"Yep," I said. I looked up at the cold blue sky, squinting a little in the sun. "He's in the guard house. Interrogation hasn't been very successful," I mentioned. Bucky smiled grimly. "The guards are actually really good at their jobs. I like them," I said casually. "If you wanted to go for a walk to work off some energy, you might see the guard house on the way, it's over there on the way to the track and the obstacle course," and I gestured to the right.

"I think I'll check out the obstacles," he said, and without another word loped off, not quite in the same direction I'd indicated.

I watched him go.

"Emma," Bruce called, and I looked over to see him coming toward me, the dogs running past him. Sigurd zipped past to follow Bucky, and Torburn stopped to accompany me. "Was that Bucky?" he asked.

"Yep. I had Nick bring him in." Bruce nodded in acceptance.

"Fury said they brought in somebody from the outside to treat Steve," he said, and I nodded this time. "And that they hadn't gotten anything out of Namitar." I nodded again. He stared off where Bucky had gone. "Well, that might change. Have you had breakfast yet? You could catch me up, then we could go visit everybody else in the hospital."

"Sounds like a plan," I said, and we went to the caf. I caught him up on Steve's condition, and we both looked up to see Peter standing by our table, clutching a tray from the breakfast buffet. "Sit down," I invited him, and before long he was telling us how he'd met the strange doctor fighting crime in New York.

"I worry about you out there by yourself," I said gently, and he flushed a little.

"I'm careful. And I've met some others, not just Doctor Strange. There's a guy called the Devil of Hell's Kitchen, and a PI named Jessica Jones. There's something about the Devil that's a little off, and she drinks too much, but she is really tough. Doctor Strange used to be a surgeon, really world-class, but he was in a car wreck and he can't do it anymore, so he traveled, and who knows what else. But he is a legit doctor, so if anybody can help Cap, it's him."

Bruce changed the subject by asking how school was going, and we talked about that until we were done and going into the hospital. Dr Rai met Peter and gave us the ground rules for visiting the others: wear masks, avoid touching the patients and wash hands frequently to help protect them from new threats. Rounds had been recently completed, so everybody was awake. Tony's yellow fever was getting worse; he had the jaundice and abdominal pain, so the doctors were worried that he was entering the toxic stage. Bruce waved at everybody, but he went to sit by Natasha.

"How come you and Dr Banner aren't affected?" Peter asked, as we walked up the hall to Jim and Tony's room. 

"I think not many people know that the Hulk is Dr Banner's alter ego," I say quietly. "And they found out here that the Hulk actually has different DNA. They're trying to wait for Natasha to recover to have Bruce change so they can get a blood sample. Bruce is clear, so apparently he wasn't a target. As for me, nobody but people on this campus know who the Armorer is, and I've always got that stocking mask on under my helmet. My hair isn't ever seen, let alone available to grab. Nobody knows what I look like, so I'm pretty safe. And pretty new; there haven't been as many chances to get a sample from me. I also lint roller my costume before I go out, so there's no lint or dog fur or hair on it. The dogs are Asgardian, so it would probably be very difficult to infect them with something that I'd catch." I tried to remember if the dogs had ever shown up with the Armorer. I thought not, because it would be a dead giveaway if they showed up with both me and her. Me, in any case. 

After we'd visited everybody, I walked Peter back to the quinjet. He'd skipped school for this trip and he wanted to get back before his aunt noticed. I gave him a hug and promised to tell him as soon as anything changed, and stood back to watch the jet rise and dart away.


	17. The waiting game

I went back to my workshop and opened it up. I swept the chain mail samples into a drawer; just felt too frivolous to even think about with so much trouble around. Mr Pointy had been left on the porch along with DB and Martha, having had the mud cleaned off to make sure they were safe. There are amazing people working here. Either the mud or the cleaning had really faded the stain on Mr Pointy; I was going to have to redo it, but that would take a couple minutes of work, tops. The fans were in perfect condition.

I picked up my poleaxe and went out to whack at the tree some more. I had a pretty deep well of anger to fuel me and I stabbed and slashed with all my strength.

"Hey," someone said behind me, and I whipped around to see Bucky, looking pretty much inscrutable as usual. He nodded to the poleaxe. "Don't suppose you have another one?" Wordlessly, I went inside and grabbed the original weapon I'd been given, trotted down the porch steps, and tossed it to him. He caught it with ease, tested the balance, and attacked when he thought I wasn't ready. But I was. I was ready for him, and I'd watched enough videos of reinactments to know how to handle it. I was clumsy, as the tree didn't offer much in the way of a defense, but I was better than Bucky expected and I managed to surprise him by using the pole part to smack his hamstring and cause him to abandon an attack.

"You're better than you were," he said critically. I nodded.

After a few moments of silence, I said, "I had to use it."

He looked at me patiently. "Tell me." So I told him about trying to find the landslide, how I thought I was going to drown in the puddle, how I had to get up, and how it had ended.

"It's never easy for a good person to kill somebody," he said.

"Natasha said you get used to it." 

"I hope you don't," Bucky said, surprising me. "I'd hate to see you get... hardened." He hefted the poleaxe again and held it out; I took it and put them both in the workshop. "Fury offered me a position here," he mentioned.

I sat down on the steps, offering him a towel, wiping my own face. "I thought he might, I just didn't expect it to be this soon. What was his offer?"

"When I'm ready, come out here. Join the Avengers. Be in charge of weapons training." He sat beside me.

"What do you think?" I asked.

"I don't know. I'm torn. I can be helpful here, but...I don't want to be here if Steve isn't."

"I understand. You don't need to answer right now though. You can take your time." I hesitated. "How's therapy going?"

He smiled, the first real one I'd seen this visit. "I just cut back from three appointments a week to one."

I grinned back. "That's really good news. Constance wouldn't have cut back if you weren't ready for it." At his look, I added, "We're friends, but she also treated me after my accident, so I have an understanding of what you're going through. It's not at all the same, but I know what it's like to do the work." I smiled. "She still talks me down occasionally." He nodded, and we just sat there for awhile as the shadows lengthened. "I need to go back to medical. You want to come?" I stood and gave him a hand up. We walked down to the clinic in peaceful silence.

We were just about to the clinic when he asked abruptly, "Why do you still work with Constance? I thought you were ok."

My smile was a little sour. "I didn't really want to do this Avenging thing, but there have been enough incidents that have convinced me that I'm safer here than anywhere. I didn't have a lot of choice in the matter, but there have been a couple of attempts to kidnap me. I can't go anywhere by myself these days, just in case. I always have to have at least one of the others with me, so I'm a little...I don't know what to call it. It's irritating and claustrophobic sometimes. And especially at the beginning, Stark and I were always at each others' throats. It wasn't physical, but it was the bare-knuckle verbal equivalent of a brawl, going after each other, hitting as hard and as dirty as possible, trying to inflict maximum damage. Not pleasant for anybody. So she lets me vent, gives me support and constructive criticism." Bucky thought about this as we entered the facility. He went on ahead and I found Dr Rai for my instructions.

He was pretty grim. "Strange left, said he did all he could," he said, and I got the feeling he wasn't the weird doctor's biggest fan. "I need you to see what's going on. We're having a heck of a time keeping Cap hydrated and we can't get enough nutrients in him. His metabolism is ferocious."

"Dr Lister, our wellness doctor, estimated he eats about 10 000 calories a day," I offered.

"No wonder we can't keep up," Rai sighed. "But he's coming to the end of what he can handle. If the infection isn't relieved, he's probably going to die," he told me gently and I worked hard to keep my face impassive. He had enough to deal with without me.

"Right," I managed, and followed him numbly. In the room, he noted the readings on the monitors and I finally let myself look at all the machines. All the lines going in and out of Steve, the ventilator, all providing as much help as was humanly possible. I took a deep breath of the cool, slightly stale air in my suit and spun my vision down. I looked once, quickly, then settled in for a more detailed look. Then I looked at his heart for stress and the blood for its viral content. They'd been filtering his blood, but the hellish viruses had replicated like lightening.

I popped out and sighed. Bucky and Dr Rai were staring at me intently. I smiled. I thought Bucky was going to melt, he was so relieved, and Dr Rai shot questions at me, having me go back in and give him estimates on numbers. "Good, good," he muttered, punching away at his tablet. "These are better numbers. We're not out of the woods yet, but there's light."

I slipped out of the room and by the time I was ready to see my other teammates, I was feeling better. Tony and Jim were still suffering from the worst their diseases could inflict; Jim was sleeping, and I had a brief conversation with Tony. I risked the wrath of the nurses, found a plastic chair, and placed it in the shower for him, letting him hang onto me for support. He was shaking with fatigue at the end of the shower when I came to help him back, but he seemed relieved and happier to be clean. He even reined in the snark. It was helpful because we were caught, as you'd expect. The nurse gave us both a tongue-lashing in a low voice, out of respect for Jim, who was getting some needed sleep. Then out in the corridor, Dr Harris, just coming on shift, also chewed me out. "I know you were trying to help your friend, and Mr Stark has been...fractious, but if he'd fallen, he could have been hurt and been worse off. If you can't follow instructions, you won't be allowed back," she told me forcefully. I took the scolding stoically. She was right, but Tony was normally fastidious, and he'd gotten fixated on how filthy he felt. It hadn't been hard for Tony to talk me into helping him; he'd be more restful and easier to deal with now.

There was good news on my other teammates too: Wanda, Vision, and Thor were being discharged, along with Natasha too, and everybody was improving. I was surprised, but she'd been altered a little during her training and her recovery was swift. I walked back to the residence with them and we arranged to meet in an hour for dinner.

At dinner, I told them how everybody else was doing; details about Steve's condition hadn't been provided to them and their reactions were shocked and appalled. Bruce shook his head. "Makes me want to unleash the Other Guy on that bastard Namitar," he muttered, and Natasha patted his hand.

I smirked a little. "Not necessary," I said, satisfaction flooding my voice. "Bucky paid him a visit." I saw him come into the caf and waved at him. He nodded to me, looked at the others, and went to get his dinner.

"The man of the hour," Natasha said when he sat down. "So what did you do to Namitar?"

The ghost of a smile curved his lips. "I crowded him and told him that I was the Winter Soldier." He addressed his plate.

"And the Academy Award for Most Intimidating Looming goes to James Barnes," I murmured, and everyone laughed, even Vision, who isn't noted for his sense of humor.

"A good fight, though..." Thor mused.

"I got what was needed. He's a carrier for disease, and he was working for someone he identified as Smith." Bucky shook his head. "They used dead drops for communication; it'll be difficult to trace him."

"But not impossible," Natasha said, looking thoughtful.

Bucky toyed with his fork as I was making a note to ask the doctors just what Namitar was a carrier for. "Fury offered me a job here," he said suddenly, watching reactions. So did I; all I saw was surprise and interest. I went back to dinner as the others asked him questions and talked about it. Nick came by while we were discussing dessert.

"So, Barnes, what do you think about my offer?" he said after a minimum of chit chat with the rest of us.

"I need to wait and see what happens to Steve," he said after a moment. "Emma said you didn't need an immediate answer."

Nice. Bucky just shoved me under the bus. I gave Nick a wide-eyed look and shrugged.

"It's not critical that we have a weapons master right this instant," I pointed out. "The doctors have medically restricted all these guys for the next forty-eight hours and everybody is still in the hospital. Bruce is a weapon, and I actually had a sparring session with Bucky earlier. Aside from you, that's everybody accounted for." 

"If Emma says so, I guess I can wait for your answer," Nick said, but there wasn't any bite in his words. His coat swirled behind him as he turned to leave. The table seemed to let out its breath, and Natasha laughed.

"Thanks, buddy," I said to a surprised Bucky, deciding that I could use some cake. Seeing as how my encounter with the bus had left me mostly unscathed, a treat was definitely in order.

I was too restless to focus on anything, so after hours of fidgeting, I went into Jim and Tony's rooms for their phones. Tony had been complaining of boredom, which was probably true, or at least speaking of a need for distraction, and I thought Jim could use a break from his roomie, so I brought along a couple of new pairs of earbuds. At the clinic, one of the nurses took the phones away and wiped them down with antiseptic solution. "You know you're not supposed to be here, visiting hours are over," he said, and I looked innocently at the ceiling. He popped the phones and earbuds into plastic bags and handed them to me. "You'll have to leave by yourself, I'm busy." I thanked him and hurried silently to Tony and Jim's room, where they were both sleeping. I left the bags for them and checked the other guys. Scott was going to be released the next day and Clint and Sam were recovering pretty quickly. It seemed that in straight humans, once the supercharged viruses were past the first wave of infection, their strength decreased geometrically, unable to keep replicating themselves and further sickening their hosts. I thought about that on the walk to Steve's room. Maybe that was why Steve had been hit with two diseases; if Namitar knew that his work only produced short-term effects, he might have wanted to make sure. Jim and Tony were the outliers on this scale though; both of them were unmutated and they'd been hit really hard. Maybe it was easier to do better work with yellow fever and leishmaniasis. That kind of genetic manipulation had to be fiendishly difficult to begin with.

I suited up and went in to sit with Steve. I was tireder than I thought; I nodded off at some point. I woke up when I heard movement. I opened my eyes and prepared to grovel to whomever was here to check on Steve.


	18. The stress starts to show

There was no doctor. I struggled out of the chair and hurried over to Steve, whose eyes were wild. I grabbed the wrist of the hand that was trying to rip off some sensors and hit the call button.

"Steve, stop," I said calmly. "You're really sick, and this is all here to help you." He relaxed a little, searching my face. "Namitar infected you somehow, we don't know how yet, and you've got the flu and pneumonia. You need to stay calm."

He stopped struggling, and I continued, "It'll take a little bit of time for them to get in, but if you're patient, I bet you get the ventilator tube out." I smiled at him and put his arm down gently, but he grabbed my hand when I started to move away. I stayed at his side and told him the highlights of what had happened while he was out, emphasizing that everybody was going to be ok. He brightened when he heard that Bucky was here, and FINALLY I heard the door open. Steve's brief spurt of energy had tired him out, and his grip loosened, but I didn't let go until both Harris and Rai hurried in and started noting the readings. I looked in Steve's lungs, blood, and heart, and waited until Dr Harris addressed me.

"Visiting hours are over," she mentioned.

"I fell asleep, actually," I admitted, and she smiled a little.

"What do you see?" Dr Rai asked.

"About half of what I saw in the lungs earlier," I said eagerly. "The inflammation is almost gone, and the tissue is healing, not scarring." Rai's eyebrows shot up and both of them poked at their pads faster. "The virus in the blood is almost gone, and the heart muscle is great."

Then Dr Harris told me to get out. "And don't come back until tomorrow," she said sternly. I had no rejoinder, and nodded to her. Then I smiled and waved at Steve, whose eyes were drifting closed.

Once outside in the night air, I texted Nick the good news.

NickFury: Aren't you supposed to be in bed right now?

EH: I fell asleep in the room. But I'm going home now.

NickFury: Don't you ever follow directions? It's good that you're useful.

EH: I am following directions as we speak. Or text. Whatever.

NickFury: Good. And that is excellent news.

Before going home, I stopped by the guest suite and knocked. Bucky was apparently sleeping as he came to the door in loose knit pants, but his eyes were alert and wary. I smiled, and he exhaled a long breath, slumping against the door frame.

"He woke up," I said simply. "It's looking good, but there'll be more information in the morning. I wanted you to know."

"Thanks," he said, and I continued on my way. I was really tired.

I woke up around dawn, had an early breakfast, and went to the workshop to do something constructive while I waited. There was a big box on the floor by my bench, and when I opened it, I found fabrics. My costumes. I had instructions to try them on and let the costumers know if there were any issues. They had 3D scans of all of us and had made perfect replicas of our bodies to fit the costumes on, but it was never the same as feeling a rough spot on a seam or not being able to move your arm the way you wanted to. Damn. Now I had to do the metalwork. I pulled out Steve's sketches from where I'd carefully stored them and started to make plans.

But first.

Promptly at eight, I presented myself at Dr Harris' office.

"Steve has shown remarkable improvement over night," she said with no preamble, "And Jim and Tony are doing much better as well. We're discharging everybody but those three three today." I grinned; it was a huge deal. "You're very helpful, but I have to say that you're also being a pain in our collective butt. Unauthorized showers, sneaking in past visiting hours...you are not a doctor and don't know what is best for the patients. Any more rule violations and you'll be banned unless you're here for health care yourself." I won't lie, that stung. Truth does, but I also felt it was slightly unfair. I had helped by keeping the peace, knowing who to call, and seeing things the doctors couldn't. "You can go see your teammates, but only briefly. They need rest to recover." I exited her office without comment.

Clint and Scott were champing at the bit to be released and we made arrangements to get together at lunch. Jim was reclining with his eyes closed and earbuds in, and Tony was rather more docile than he'd been. Jim stopped the music when we started talking and I updated them on everybody. "We may get out of here day after tomorrow," Tony said. "I can't wait. This sucks."

He still looked kind of sallow, but I wasn't going to say anything. "You still look pretty worn out," I said instead, and diverted them with the tale of Bucky and Namitar.

"Dammit, I wanted a piece of him," Tony said fretfully.

"He's not in your weight class," I said tactfully, and he thought about that, nodding.

"You're right, but still."

"There's a lot to track down still," I pointed out, and he smiled sharply. "I've got to go, I don't know when I'll be back, so play nice with each other."

"Thanks for bringing this," Jim said, waving his phone.

"How'd you know it was me?"

"Who else would have thought about it? I need a little alone time from my roommate." I smiled at him and Tony huffed in mock indignation.

"I went into your rooms without permission, so I'm sorry I invaded your privacy. I didn't poke around." Jim waved it off.

"I appreciate it. It's boring being sick with nothing to do."

"I would have poked around. Just so you know. So how come the visit is so short? Why won't you be coming back?" Tony wanted to know.

"Because I'm lawless," I half whispered. "I am a rule-breaker who has been here too much and I've worn out my welcome." Tony snorted. "And don't make a fuss. If you'd have slipped in the shower, that would have been on me."

"My nose thanks you, though," Jim said, and I left when they began to bicker. I suited up again and went in to see Steve.

He opened his eyes when I came in and smiled. The good news was that he was off the ventilator and he said they'd discontinued oxygen after the first visit of the day. the bad news was that he looked awful, wasted and worn. I took a look and his lungs were clear of the bacteria, no inflammation and no scarring. There were still a few flu stragglers, but his immune system was taking care of that.

"That is just so amazing," I said, shaking my head.

"I get to move out of here later today," Steve said in relief.

"I hope you get a private room."

"Why?"

"Because Tony and Jim have been cooped up together and Tony is bored. I brought him his phone, but apparently he needs a new challenge." Steve sighed.

"I don't think I'm recovered enough. I should stay in here," he said, faking a cough. My laugh fell away with a tap on the glass.

"Gotta go," I said lightly. "Heal up." I patted his hand and left.

"I'm leaving," I said peaceably to Dr Rai after the door closed. He nodded.

"You can come back tomorrow. If he continues to progress he'll be moved out of this room." I nodded and went into the shower, ending the conversation.

I didn't want to be a pouty baby, so I hit the obstacle course to work off my mad. It wasn't the same without Steve, though, so afterward I went to my workshop and tried on the new clothing. There was a black unitard-kind of thing made from soft black knit, thick enough to cushion the mail, that faded slightly to a dark gray on my head. The stocking cap was part of the suit in the front and there were some fasteners on the back neck and down the spine a little so I could get in and out while still protecting my identity. There was a little eye slit so I could see, and a pair of electric blue contact lenses, which wouldn't be seen as long as I kept the long mail hood down over my eyes. I had a white unitard-thing with a white skirt and white stocking mask for the silver armor with violet contact lenses, and a tank top that ended in a stocking mask, a pair of short shorts with matching skirt, and a pair of knee-high boots with a reasonably chunky two inch heel for the Spartan costume. I'd overlooked the leather bracers for my forearms. I also had sports bras and panties that weren't granny panties but still covered the real estate in question. And socks. I sighed. I had a lot of work to do.

I emailed Promotions to thank them for getting the clothing done so fast, said they fit beautifully, and told them I was working on my part. Then I went back to the mail, selecting the right gauge of wire and the right diameter for the rings. I added some textural interest by twisting the wire for some of the rings. They ended up being fairly big for the most part, smaller for areas like under the arms and where there were decreases or increases, and for the design around the hood and hems; I was going to make the shirt, darken it to take off the shine and silver, then put on a dark blue edging with the smallest rings. It should go pretty fast to make; soldering the rings closed would probably take more time. I worked until I had to go to lunch. It was a fun affair now that most of us were on the outside and we knew the three remaining were going to be ok.

Then it was back to work, where I filled out a form requested by the quinjet engineers to provide them feedback on the new jet, and I took some metal samples inside for coatings to test some new stuff on. Then I got back to the armor, where the mail knitted up pretty fast. I started at the pointy top of the hood and worked down; by the time Sigurd reminded me I needed dinner, I'd just gotten down past the armpits. I ate late, so I ate alone, and then it was back to the workshop, where I worked late in the night to finish it. The metal was brittle after being worked, so I fixed that by heating it and leaving it to cool. I made sure I had the materials I'd need to color the shirt tomorrow, then went to bed.

I was up early the next morning and ran the obstacle course and lifted weights; in the absence of Steve, the gym manager spotted me. I ate briskly and went to the hospital for visits. The boys were thrilled at the news that they'd be released the next day, and we were having a good chat when the doctors showed up and chased me out. "We haven't done rounds yet," Dr Rai said, which was a surprise; they were always done by eight. I went along next door, where Steve and Nick were talking intently. I was glad to see Steve looking better, but this time Nick chased me out as he was bringing Steve up to speed.

"Don't you have work to do? Keep your head down and nose clean, Harrington," he directed, so I left and went back to work. I was irritated when I went back to the shop. Everybody was glad enough to have my help when the fecal material hit the rotary impeller. I was being shown my place. It only a took a couple more hours to finish the chain mail shirt, which I finished by lightly rubbing off some of the oxidation to allow tiny glints of silver to appear. It was really striking.

I started on the white armor next since it also had elements of chain mail and scale armor and was a natural progression. None of these new looks was really heavy-duty for field work and requested a new set of my old leather costume, specifying that it was for specific conditions in the field and sending a picture of my new shirt to sweeten the deal. Promotions was very pleased and Costume said they'd get right on it.

At lunch, I listened to accounts of visits with the guys in the hospital; they had just left and it was well past the end of visiting hours. I literally bit my tongue. It was good to see everybody happy and healthy again and together. I spent my afternoon cutting out the shapes for the scales; very time consuming. I wondered if I should get myself a press where I could stamp out multiple shapes at a time once a die was formed, but decided against it; most of what I did wouldn't require it. Then each scale had to be curved and domed, and I hadn't even started on the engraving when I broke for dinner. When I got back, I locked up my shop and called Constance.

She listened sympathetically. "You may not want a parade or anything, but I think you'd like somebody to pat you on the back and say thanks, you really helped out." Her gaze sharpened. "That you made a difference. You're not one for the limelight, but you do like to have your contributions acknowledged."

"That's me, ego rampant. I've been around Tony too long," I said flippantly.

"Stark isn't to blame for this," she said dryly, and I snorted a laugh. "But it hurts because you were able to step up and make key contributions, and now you're being shoved out the door with perfunctory thanks. So you have a couple of choices now. You can push it until you get what you want, or you can let it go." She paused, then smiled before she sobered. "Now, let's talk about that mission. You killed somebody, even if it was self defense." So we had a good long talk about that. It was a serious matter to take somebody else's life, and around here it was kind of business as usual, but it wasn't for me. My reaction to that was also fueling my resentment, as I discovered as we talked, and Con gave me suggestions for working through my little mess. I felt a lot better after talking to her.

I stayed in the workshop working late on the engraving, stopping only when my vision got a little blurry. I went home and got a few hours of sleep, then it was agility course and breakfast, then back to the shop. I didn't know when Tony and Jim were being released, and I didn't think that Steve would actually be that far behind now that he was on the mend. I got a message from Wanda that Tony and Jim were coming to lunch, and pried myself away. They'd been missed; we'd all been used to Tony's wit and Jim's leavening humor and insight.

"So why didn't you come by today?" Tony wanted to know.

"You guys were getting out," I pointed out. "And you know the doctors aren't thrilled with me. I don't want to push my luck, or they will ban me."

Tony snorted. "Not if they want their jobs," the bankroll behind the operation said.

"No, you've got to stop using your money as a cudgel," I said sternly. "There are rules in place for a reason, and I have no idea what it's like to run a facility like this. Just because you fund operations doesn't mean that you should get to interfere with it at will. And I did break the rules." Tony just sniffed and addressed his lunch.

"So how's Steve today?" Bruce asked.

"I haven't been. Nick told me to go back to work and keep my nose clean, so that's what I've been doing." That caused a low murmur. "I have been slacking off," I said.

"So that's why you look like crap," Natasha said. I shrugged.

"Got caught up in my work. I'm making good progress."

"I wondered if you could make me a poleaxe like yours," Bucky said diffidently. "I don't know if there's a request process or anything." I smiled.

"So you're joining us?" Tony's voice was neutral.

"I accepted Fury's offer," Bucky said, also neutrally. Tony nodded after a moment.

"Yep," I said, and quickly made notes on what he said about what he'd like to see in his weapon. When I got back to the shop, I requested another ash pole and made a few rough sketches. It was late in the afternoon when I finished engraving the simple veining on the scales so they'd look like leaves. I selected some steel stock to use for Bucky's poleaxe and set it aside; when I got back from dinner I started to work on it. It was kind of odd to do actual blacksmithing again rather than poking away at my fussy alloys, and I had to reference the materials I'd gotten during my Austrian blacksmithing course a couple of times, but It was good fun. There's something very satisfying about making something, seeing something being created by your efforts and skill.

The next morning, we met in the conference room for an official after-action meeting. Steve joined us and Peter was conferenced in. Steve still looked rough, but much better than he had. Man bounces back fast. Nick had the feeds from all of our body cams up on the big screen, showing what each of us saw at any given time. We watched the whole thing from when they stormed the complex to when we all got back to the quinjet, stopping when somebody (usually Nick) had a question.

"Where's that gizmo over the lock?" Tony wanted to know.

"I bagged it and turned it over when we got back. I thought you'd have been given it by now," I said, and he made a note to follow up. After we'd watched the presentation, which didn't take as long as I thought it would--apparently it just felt endless--Nick provided critiques. I caught a blast for not staying in the quinjet, not being trained for the field.

"But they might not have found Steve in time if she hadn't helped," Peter said, puzzled.

"We'd have found him," Tony said. "We were already searching that area." Sam disagreed, saying that time had been critical. There was a general discussion of how if I'd stayed in the jet, Sess would still be alive and probably available for questioning. I gritted my teeth.

"Harrington, you have anything to say?" Nick said.

"Yeah, I do. First of all, I'm not fucking two years old. I don't need to have my hand held constantly. I wasn't running around willy-nilly out there. I always had a purpose and I'm smart enough to be able to make a plan. You shut up," I said when Tony opened his mouth. "As far as training is concerned, every situation is different. I read history, and what I know from that is that no plan survives the first engagement with the enemy. From there it's action and reaction and very situational dependent. I can defend myself and I didn't interfere with anything. Bruce isn't getting any flack for charging off into the night and rampaging around. Nobody is getting blasted for the other two members of the group getting away. Nobody said shit to me at the time, so this second-guessing isn't fair. And is there even a training program? This isn't combat in the general Army sense. These are targeted missions."

"You need to take constructive criticism," Nick said severely.

"I do take constructive criticism. All I'm hearing right now is unfounded criticism. I did what I was told. I stayed in the jet until I heard about the landslide and went to offer help that nobody else could." I looked around. "There's not a lot of loyalty here, is there? Not much of a team, either. Everybody has their own job and does their own thing, but I'm the only one being criticized for it. It's not like Wanda or Vision or Scott have gotten field training either, but they are put out there and their mistakes are acknowledged, not held up," I said tersely. I looked around; only Peter would meet my eyes. "It seems to me like everybody is eager to point out what I did wrong and have a gloss drawn over their own activities." Everybody had made mistakes. That's the nature of human activity. There were things that all of us could have done better. Ballista had slipped away when Thor had been distracted. Necros had vanished when Sam had provided support for Tony. Steve might have triggered the landslide because he didn't think about the effect of all that rain on a bare hillside before he went charging over it. "Are we done here?" I asked abruptly.

Nick studied me a moment, then nodded. I was the first out of my chair and through the door. On my way back to the shop, I diverted to the labs in response to a text from the lab rats, and talked a problem over, then helped set up some samples for testing. I didn't have much to contribute past some bonding problems I saw, but it was good to collaborate and work in the familiar environment. Somebody brought in sandwiches for a late lunch, and it was quitting time before I made it to my own shop. My anger had dissipated in the labs, so I could resume work on the poleaxe as usual. It wasn't going to be as pretty as mine, but Bucky didn't want ornamentation. I settled into a satisfying round of heating, hammering, and cooling, and didn't stop until the door opened and a blast of cold air distracted me. I dropped the metal into a bucket of water to cool and folded my arms as I looked at Steve and Tony.

"Couldn't find you after the meeting," Steve said.

I shrugged. "Had a request to help in the labs. That's actually part of my job."

His flush highlighted the planes of his face which were still gaunt from his sickness.

"Get your feelings hurt?" Tony asked, and I glared at him.

"I resent being held to a different and unjustifiable standard," I said coolly. "So yes, my "feelings are hurt."" I fished out the metal from the water and looked at it critically, then turned to put it back in to heat.

"You're not being fair," Steve said.

"You're kidding," I said.

"I'm not. Everybody else has training."

"Bullshit. You, Sam, and Jim learned military tactics, but this is more on the order of guerilla warfare. Tony learned by causing a lot of property damage and injuries. Wanda was thrown into things in Solkovia. She started fighting because of her brother and Hawkeye and because she wanted to make amends. Training around here is a matter of target practice and practice matches. I'm in good condition and Bucky will tell you I'm not all that bad with my weapon. So how am I so different?" Steve didn't have an answer for that. I pulled out the metal and carefully drove a chisel through the pike part, turning it and splitting it into fourths. I belled them out at the base, clamped the ends into a vise, and gently twisted the strands to form a pleasing curve. Then I clipped off the excess on the ends and completed forming the solid point before cooling it once more. I turned to find Tony handling the parts of the white armor on my bench.

"Get out of my stuff," I ordered.

"Or what?" he smirked. "This is all part of your budget, isn't it? I pay the bills." The inference was clear.

"I told you to stop using money as a weapon," I said quietly. I looked up to see that Nick was leaning in the doorway. "You know what I think?"

"I'm sure we'll all be fascinated," Stark snarked.

"I think it's your little feelings that are hurt. Looking at the camera feeds, you were a good two or three minutes from the area that Rogers was found, and when you uncovered him, he'd already stopped breathing. Every second increases the possibility of brain damage." I swung my look to Nick. "Are you mad that I thought about Strange and you didn't? I told Pete to talk to you about him and he said he did. Are you mad that I told you to get Bucky here so he could say goodbye if Steve died?" I looked at Steve. "I have no idea why you're pissy. I did everything I could think of to help. Unless you're worried I'm making a play for team leadership, which is ridiculous." I went back to Stark. "And you. Did anybody else do anything to make you more comfortable? I know Bruce visited Natasha, but did he drop by your room too? Did anybody once they were discharged? It's a hell of a team here." I dropped the metal in the bucket, then reached in and picked it out, turning off the forge and leaving the metal on the anvil. I opened a drawer in my bench and got my purse. Then I brushed past the three men and hit the remote on the shop's autoclose. I smiled grimly as I heard the consternation. Stark would figure it out soon enough. I lengthened my stride, the dogs keeping pace, and we went to the garage. I hit the unlock button on the remote, and soon I had the Mercedes driving smoothly down the road and out through the gates, waving at the guards, who waved back. I drove for a few hours, stopping here and there to let the dogs out for a run on a beach or at a point of interest.


	19. Field trip!!

I got back around three in the morning, calmer and more relaxed than I'd been before the Yucatan. It was amazing what real solitude could do for a person. I'd done some thinking as well. When I got back, there was a message from Peter, saying his aunt was worried about his lack of focus and was worried he was in danger of losing his scholarship from the Stark Foundation, and would I talk to her. I texted an affirmative, then rethought and said I was coming out. Then I went to bed and slept until nine.

When I woke up, I had a summons from Nick. I had a hasty breakfast and went to his office. "Where did you go last night?" he asked without preamble.

"Out for a drive," I replied briefly.

"You're not supposed to leave the campus unescorted," he said, frowning.

"I wasn't; I had Sigurd and Torburn. But that's one of the things I was thinking about last night. What is it about my abilities that presumably make me so valuable? I can't do mass production. I'm not terribly effective with biologicals. I am not like the rest of your heroes. And how would anybody have known where I was? I picked Seattle on a whim. You know what I think? I think the first thing, the men with the needles, was a setup so that I'd be more receptive to your offer, and the second thing, the airplane thing, was a result of either somebody being careless or deliberately leaking information. Nothing too specific, just that the Avengers were interested in a person, which would be enough to make some people very curious. I don't think Stark would deliberately crash his own plane." Nick just sat there very still.

"No comment, Fury?" I said mockingly.

"Not really, no," he said, crossing his arms and leaning back.

"Since I'm not field-trained, I expect that I won't be going out into the field anymore," I said tersely. "So I won't need any more costumes, and I won't be making any more appearances." Fury's eye widened. "Furthermore, Pete got in touch with me last night. His aunt is worried about him and he wants me to talk her down. I leave at noon."

"Emma, don't do anything rash," he said, sitting up.

"I'm not. I'll do what Peter wants, which is to reassure his aunt that he's not in trouble and he still has money to pay for college, which he does. I will personally guarantee that." I got up and left.

When I left, telling the dogs they'd need to hang out with Thor, Scott was waiting in the hall with keys to the car pool. "I'm your driver," he said jovially. I looked at him. "All I know is that Fury asked me to drive you to the airport, you were going out to talk to Pete's guardian." So he drove me out; there wasn't much conversation. I don't think either of us really knew what to say. I got through security easily, and my flight to New York was without incident. No crashes, not even a drunk on the plane.

I got a room at a nice hotel that did not have a view of Stark Tower and called Peter; he asked me to come over after dinner. At seven, I was in a nicely tailored suit knocking on the door. Peter's Aunt May answered the door; she was a pretty woman about my age. I introduced myself and she invited me in; we talked a little about the weather first, then we got down to business. She was concerned; she'd woken up a few times in the night and found Peter gone, and she felt he was keeping something from her.

"I certainly don't know your nephew like you do, May, but this is concerning behavior. I'm quite impressed with Peter; he seems to have a level head and a great deal of common sense. There's got to be a rational explanation, and I think I might have one." She looked interested. "Stark Industries tends to collect workaholics. A lot of people go back to work for a few hours at night if they think of something; it seems to make people more creative if they feel like they can explore their ideas as they occur. It's possible that Peter's picked up on that aspect of the culture." I held up a lanyard with an ID with Peter's picture; I'd aged it a bit on the flight over. "This was found the other night in his workspace."

May's face relaxed. "I was worried," she admitted.

"I don't blame you," I agreed. "But is Peter here? We can ask him." I'd seen his heat signature when I came in and odds were that the walls were thin enough to hear through if he concentrated. She smiled and yelled for him. He came out, looking appropriately apprehensive. May asked him where he'd been, and this time he came out with a story that agreed with mine. He waited for his aunt's reaction, chastened.

"Why do you do that?" she asked, sighing. "You have school."

He rubbed his face. "Because I like feeling like I'm on the team. They treat me like one of them. I want to pull my weight."

"Honey, don't be in such a rush to grow up," she said softly.

"My grades aren't slipping," he countered. She looked over at me.

"I can certainly understand that you're concerned that he might be spreading himself too thin, and you're probably worried about his safety, too. I don't want to forbid him from coming in late; I like to encourage teams to bond, and Peter is a valuable member of our team. But maybe there's room for compromise. Say, Peter agrees not to come in with every idea, and I can give him our Uber account information so that he always has safe transportation."

She thought this over, then agreed. Peter agreed, and I wrote down the information for him. I doubted he'd use it, but it was always good to have. I wasn't lying when I said I was concerned for him. "Do you have any other concerns or questions?" I asked her.

"I was worried about his scholarship," she said. "It's going to be very important to his college plans."

"I understand. But you don't have to worry. He's got a scholarship for college. I can guarantee it." And if Stark was ever a dick about it, I'd pay it myself. I pulled out a card and wrote on it. "Here. This is my personal cell number. If you have any questions or concerns, please know I'm interested in hearing them. Call me at any time."

She took it with relief. "Thank you, Emma. This really helps to put me at ease." I felt kind of like a heel. She was really nice. I wondered if I was guilty of child endangerment. I decided to talk to Peter more in depth later. We shook hands, and she directed Peter to see me down.

"Don't suppose I can talk you out of it until you're of age," I said in the elevator, and he smiled.

"Nope."

"Well, that's a key card that will actually work at Stark Tower." I'd swallowed my pride and set it up while waiting for the meeting with May. "You've got an office on the floor under the labs. Go in a few times, get the guards used to seeing you." His eyes were big. "Don't forget, I really do have your best interests at heart. If you run into any trouble or just want to talk, call. You won't be bothering me."

"Thanks, Emma. I really appreciate you coming out here. It means a lot that you'd help me out, especially with what happened in the meeting."

"I could use the time off," I said, sighing. "One more thing. There's a small medical clinic in Stark Tower. Your ID gets you 24 hour access. There's no copay and your aunt won't be bothered unless it's something that can't be hidden, like a broken arm." Peter snorted.

"Thanks again. What...what do you think you'll do? At the facility, I mean. That meeting was pretty intense. It didn't really seem fair."

"I don't know, actually. I joined up on some assumptions that turned out not be what I thought they were. So I need to figure things out. I'm staying here for a few days, get some space."

"Do you think you'll leave?"

"I don't know, but there's no need for my alter ego if I don't go into the field," I said, and he nodded. "But regardless of my location or affiliation, I expect to hear from you. I've got your back."

"Yes, ma'am," he said, throwing me a little salute. I smiled, and the door opened.

The next day I went shopping. Since I didn't know what I'd be doing, I felt a wardrobe upgrade was in order. And just because I slobbed around campus in yoga pants and sweatshirts or t-shirts didn't mean that I should do it all the time. I got some nice suits and had them marked for alterations. They'd be sent to me when they were done. Nice blouses in fine cotton, linen, and silks. Some nice casual pants and a few pairs of jeans. Skirts. Screw Promotion. I liked my figure. Boots and dress shoes that were different and eyecatching. A couple of new purses in neutral colors that went with everything. A long winter coat in fuschia wool, with a scarf and leather gloves to match. I didn't like wearing hats. Nice lingerie and sleepwear. Who knows, I might sign up for some dating sites. I went to a salon for a hideously expensive cut, then to the Met. I love museums.

I'd gotten back to the hotel after dinner and was contemplating bed after a nice long bath when I got a call from Peter, wondering if I'd meet him. He wanted to introduce me to someone. That sounded much more interesting than a bath, so I agreed. He gave me an address and told me they were up on the roof. I took a cab to the address, which wasn't in the best part of town. In Hell's Kitchen, come to think about it. It was chilly, and I was grateful for my new coat that kept me warm to my ankles. On the roof, I saw Peter talking to a guy in a funky red suit. He looked at me and acknowledged Peter's introduction, which was, "This is the lady I was telling you about." It amused me for some reason.

"Nice to meet you, Mr Devil," I said, and put out my hand. He bumped it with his, and seemed momentarily flustered.

"Our friend has told me a lot about you," he said. So it was going to be like that. No names. I could live with that. "Nice try getting him to stop." His voice was smooth and...practiced? Certainly well educated.

"Had to be done. I'm worried about child endangerment."

"I don't think you'd be liable; you're not his guardian or parent, and you've tried to get him to quit."

"I'm an enabler, though." I had the feeling he was smiling.

"Your secret is safe with me." A gust of wind blew my hair in my face. I wasn't use to the style, which was considerably chicer than my usual ponytail.

"I wanted you to meet," Peter said. "So you wouldn't worry about me being alone out here." I snorted.

"Like that's going to change," I scoffed affectionately. "Everybody has their own work to do too."

"That's true, Ms H--um. But I can keep my eye out for this one." The Devil's tone was wry.

"Appreciate it," I said, and he nodded and left. We watched as he moved away, very powerful and controlled, like he knew at least one form of martial arts very well.

"I have friends," Peter said softly, and I nodded. I hoped it would be enough. When I got to the hotel, I put some ideas I'd had into Google and found what I thought was the right result.

The next morning, I made an appointment at a law firm. I took a cab back to Hell's Kitchen.

The woman at the desk seemed very happy to see me, and I wondered if the firm was in financial trouble. She called both of the named partners out. One of them, a man she introduced as Foggy, was very pleased to meet me and very friendly. His partner, Matt, was less effusive. "How did you find us, Ms Harrington?" he asked.

"Honestly, your Yelp reviews were very helpful."

Foggy laughed a little nervously. "No offense, but you look like you could afford a white-shoe firm for your business. Why did you choose us?" The secretary hissed at him.

"I like people who care about other people," I said. "I think your firm is uniquely qualified." Foggy shot a panicked glance at his partner, and I was shepherded into Matt's office. The secretary (she never introduced herself) brought coffee, and closed the door behind her.

"What can we do for you today, Ms Harrington?" Foggy asked as we sat down.

"I'm looking to have my will revised," I said, and told them that I had a will here in New York, which was where my assets were, but I lived in Seattle, "at least for now."

"We're not licensed to practice in Washington," Matt said coolly, and I smiled. 

"But I'm sure you could read the statutes and requirements and make sure that it would be ok. I expect the will to be probated in this state, when it comes to that. "

"Are you expecting to die soon?" Foggy asked, concerned.

"No, but you just never know. I've been in a rather risky profession lately."

"Oh, god, you're one of Them," Foggy whispered. I looked at him quizzically. "Them. You know. Heroes." I could barely hear the last word.

"Have been,"I conceded. "I don't know if I'm going to continue."

"Can you talk him out of it too?"

"Foggy!" Matt said, almost in a shout.

"I doubt it," I said.

"How did you figure it out?" Matt asked quietly and calmly. Foggy shot him a nervous glance.

"The handshake. Your legal knowledge. Your demeanor. So I Googled blind lawyers in New York. I'm not kidding. Your Yelp reviews are excellent."

"I don't think I can help you, Ms. Harrington," Matt said stiffly. I rolled my eyes at him.

"How about you, Foggy?" I asked, and he hastily showed me into his office.

"Sorry about Matt," he said once we were settled. "He's a little freaked out you figured him out. So what can I do for you?"

I took a copy of my will out and handed it to Foggy. "In light of my current profession, I want to make a change in beneficiaries. It's not a big deal and now I'm worried that I might have inadvertently insulted you by asking you to make such a minor change."

"No work too small," he said, smiling, and made notes as I explained what I wanted to leave to Peter Parker. He gave the notes to the secretary to type up, using the previous will as a template for everything but the new bequest, which was added at the end after a few revisions had been made, and I arranged to put them on retainer. We made small talk until it was done and printed out, and my signature witnessed and notarized. A copy was kept with the firm and I took one with me as I prepared to go. When the secretary left with my debit card, he leaned over the desk.

"Which one are you?" he whispered. I grinned and whispered back.

"That is totally protected by privilege," he assured me, and I laughed. I liked Foggy.

I signed the charge slip on my way out. "Bye, Mr Murdock," I whispered toward his door, and I heard a pen drop. Mwahaha.

Even with my last-minute business, I was able to catch my flight with no trouble. Sam was waiting for me at the curb and raised his eyebrows at my new look. "Nice," he said approvingly.

"Wait til you see what's being mailed to me," I said, and he laughed. We had an easy, teasing conversation on the drive back from SeaTac. Superheroes were not part of the conversation except for telling him about meeting Pete's Aunt May. I checked my email when I got to my room and found no new requests. I walked over to the workshop and surveyed the mess I'd left. I folded the mail shirt away and dumped the white armor into a drawer. The pole for Bucky's weapon had been delivered, along with some boxes and inter-office mail. I picked out the stuff for Loki, and as I walked over, a few snowflakes began to fall.

It was nice and warm down in the room with Loki's cell, and I was surprised to see him chatting with his brother. Thor stood immediately and offered me the chair, but I declined, slipping the order through the slot to Loki. "Lovely," he said, looking at me.

"You look very presentable," Thor assured me, and Loki shook his head.

I was starting to feel like an utter slob since everybody was so taken aback by a haircut. And makeup. Ok, and the new clothes.

"The dogs were running around outside," Thor told me, and I went outside to find them. After I called for them, they came bounding up, tails wagging hard. I gave each of them a hug and we went to dinner early. I'd say it was good to be home, but I didn't quite know if this was still home.

Later that night, I decided to make an early evening of it at 11, and changed into a turquoise silk chemise I bought for night wear. Nice. I pulled on my new velvet robe (which wasn't as warm as I thought it would be) and answered the door.


	20. Interrogation techniques

Steve and Tony stood in the hall. "What do you want?" I ask expressionlessly.

"Can we come in?" Steve asks. I think about it.

"No," I decide. "I'm getting ready for bed. What do you want?"

"Tony has a confession to make," Steve says, taking Tony by the arm.

"What now?" I wonder. Tony scowls at both of us.

"The guys with the needles? That's on me. That was my idea," he snaps.

"But Fury ok'ed it," I stated, and Tony shook his head.

"No, he didn't know about it til after." We all look over as the door to the outside opens and Bucky slips through. He halts and takes in the tableau, lingering on my new robe.

"That's a good color on you," he says to me.

"Bucky," Steve remonstrates. "Now is not the time to flirt."

"What are you doing?"

Steve sighs, but Tony cuts in. "Having a threesome, obviously." I roll my eyes.

"Feel free," I say, waving my hand at the hall. "I'll watch."

Bucky grins. His eyes travel the group again. "If you want to conduct an interrogation, a hallway is not the best place for it if you're after more than just a single answer and termination of the target," he tells me. I look at him with interest.

"I didn't think you did any interrogation, just assassination," I say, and he nods.

"I picked up a few things," he said.

Without warning, he slammed Tony into the wall, and Tony's eyes popped wide and rolled between Bucky and me. "Physical intimidation works best," he tells me.

"You can be intimidating. Plus you have that whole reputation," I say, depressed. Tony begins to wiggle. "That's my problem. Nobody's scared of me."

"If you had a weapon..." I reached into the pocket of the robe and took out the switchblade I'd made and carried everywhere. I flicked it open.

"Guys..." Tony's voice began to rise.

"Give it a shot," Bucky said approvingly. Steve just leaned against the wall, probably wondering how he got messed up in all of this. Bucky kept Tony pinned to the wall but moved aside for me. I studied Tony. He'd lost weight from his sickness too and hadn't bothered to shave yet.

I stepped up to him and twisted the knife in front of his face. "This is the same type of blade I made for Odin. Not the same style, obviously, he likes things all big and masculine, but the same metal and the same edge. He says it cuts the wind. It's an obvious exaggeration, but skin is a whole different matter. It even cuts mine." I let him take a good look as the light glints along the blade. "So why would you want to kidnap me? I'd already agreed to come work for the Avengers. What was in that hypodermic?" When Tony didn't answer immediately, I stroked his face with the blade.

"It was just a mild sedative, I swear. It was just so coincidental. Rogers just happens to stumble across you in the middle of the jungle, you just happen to make his perfect shield, Thor just happens to rescue you, you get in good with the ruling class, you host the Avengers reunion tour. You ingratiated yourself awfully fast, is all." I slit my eyes at him and switch cheeks. "After that lunch, I just wanted to make sure you didn't have an outside agenda. You'd have been questioned and taken back, I promise. But after that, Fury agreed with me that you needed to be checked out and we did an investigation. Didn't find anything, obviously, you're pretty boring," he babbled. I heard Steve sigh.

"Switch tactics," Bucky encouraged me.

"I don't think you need to encourage her," Steve's tone was dry.

So I straddle Stark's leg and plaster myself against the part of torso that Bucky's not got pinned to the wall with his forearm. I place the blade to his throat. "What about the plane crash?" I breathe into his ear. Tony starts to sweat.

"That was not me. I wouldn't have risked killing the people on board, plus the plane was expensive." The way his pulse is pounding makes the skin leap against the blade that's resting against his throat, making a tiny cut each time.

"You've got a handsome face, Tony. It would be a shame if my knife slipped," I coo, and he swallowed nervously. "Tell me more," I say icily. Bucky snorts a laugh as Tony's struggles to get away suddenly increase.

"A sous chef at the restaurant overheard us talking about bringing you on and sold the information. Fury made him go back and point out the limitations of your ability, and they lost interest," Tony said.

"Is that all?" I demanded, running the blade over his throat. "Because every time you come out with something awful, I think, 'this is got to be it. There can't be any more ways he could screw me over in just the brief time I've known him.' So now is the time for confession, Tony. Is there anything else that will make me want to dust off my old frog dissection skills?"

"Nope, that's totally all," he assured me earnestly.

I step back abruptly and cross my arms over my chest. "I really hope so, Tony." Bucky started to laugh. I opened the door to my room and stepped inside as Steve started to laugh too. When the door closed, I let myself smile. When I'd been intimidating Tony, I'd shaved a Joker-like smile on his face. He was clean-shaven now except for the enormous grin.

"Usually my interrogations make people wet their pants," I heard Bucky observe. "She's got a whole different style." Steve laughed harder, and I heard them walk away, Tony complaining about something else.

The next morning is a meeting to discuss the investigation after the mission. When Tony walks in, his new facial decoration is missing. He scowls at me. I smile cheerily. Nick calls us to order. The investigation of the site turned up some interesting information; namely, that the hillside that had collapsed had been mined with vials of the genetically modified diseases. He shows a graphic of the action which showed how Night Terror had herded the team toward the hillside. It was a very nice trap.

"The study on the microbes continues," Nick tells us. "It's difficult because they seem to be dying faster than normal ones would. It's speculated that the manipulation has also made them more fragile once they have a brief burst of hypervirulant effect. Last night, Namitar died. The preliminary autopsy indicates that he killed himself. He was a carrier, and the medical staff had determined that he had dozens of diseases in him: typhoid, typhus, measles, whooping cough, influenza, TB, leprosy, Ebola, Marburg, scarlet fever, yellow fever, even Zika. He probably isolated those diseases in order to infect you all. He apparently managed to make them go active in himself and he died quickly although not painlessly. The guards are under surveillance to make sure they weren't infected. They'll have the corpse cremated as soon as possible." He sighed. "Natasha is heading up our efforts to find the mysterious Smith that hired Night Terror as well as to locate the missing two members."

After a few questions, Nick closes the meeting and asks me to stay. The others file out, looking curiously between the two of us. They don't go far. I can see them at one end of the hallway because the conference room's wall to the hallway is glass. They think they're so smooth, but they're so wrong.

"I need to know if you're going to stay with the team," Nick says. "If you don't want to, Tony says you still have a job at Avenger Tech if you want. But I need to know. Your uncertainty is affecting my team." His words felt like a slap, and I couldn't help the gasp. I was affecting his team, which meant that I wasn't on his team.

"Then I quit," I managed to say, standing. "Wouldn't want to distract your team." When I left the room, I went the other way and down the back stairs. I hit my room for my purse, and the dogs and I went to the garage. 

When I got back after dark, I stopped by the workshop and retrieved a few things, then went to my room. I didn't have enough luggage for my clothes, but I had stopped by a store and picked up a box of Glad bags with stretchy technology. I'd phoned the store where my suits were being altered and notified that my address was changing and I'd let them know where to send them; it didn't matter much because they wouldn't be ready for a couple of weeks anyway. Then I'd left voicemail for Foggy, asking him to set up a trust for Peter with the money from the bequest and make it look like a scholarship. He'd called me right back and we'd talked about it; he liked the idea of a trust much more and said he'd get to work on it. I felt relieved. That way, no matter where I went, I could be assured that Peter would get his education and have something to live on when he graduated. I thought he'd want to stay in New York, and rents there are dreadful, starting salaries low. He'd need privacy for his crime-fighting, which meant no roommates.

I put my clothes on the bed along with everything I wanted to take with me. Aside from the little table from Austria, I didn't care about the furniture. It would be easier to buy new furniture for my new living situation when I found it, anyway. I rounded up my shoes, the little I had for hobbies--I found remnants of my foray into jewelry, the extra garnets I'd bought when making Sif's torc in case I broke any while mounting them. I wrote a short note to Loki explaining the situation and had sweet little Torburn go deliver it. I wrote another note to Thor, telling him I was leaving, I wouldn't need protection any longer, and asking him to keep the dogs, and had wonderful Sigurd deliver that one. Then I started stuffing clothing into the bags. I didn't have as much stuff as I thought, packing my overnight bag at the same time. I double-checked drawers and the bathroom, and surveyed the load. I thought I could get it out to my car in a couple of loads.

The door opened, and the dogs padded in. The note from Loki thanked me for my kindness to him and said he'd try to behave. I snorted. The note from Thor said essentially that they were my dogs and I was stuck with them. I smiled, a little watery, then got myself under control.

I came back for the second load, and the door opened behind me. I frowned; the dogs were already with me. It was Steve, and he drew me into a tight hug, one hand smoothing my hair. I could hear his heart beating. "He didn't mean that the way it sounded, Emma," he said after a moment. "We tried to get him to hold off asking. Bucky said if you were pushed you'd quit, but Fury doesn't like like anything disturbing his calm."

"He's careful with what he says," I said dully. "He meant it."

"Not like you weren't part of the team too," he argued, and I shook my head.

"What are you going to do?" he asked.

"Dunno yet. Maybe open a dog grooming business."

Before Steve could say anything, another person came through the door and made it a group hug. Then Tony stepped back and held out a stack of papers. "Read these," he said impatiently. "There's an offer from Avengers Tech." He held out another. 'Stark Tech. And an offer to be my PA."

"I am not working for you, Tony," I said firmly.

"I can change as a boss. I've been shown the error of my ways. Plus I can't push you around. Do you want to get into manufacturing razors? Because we could make an absolute killing." Some of the pages were still warm from the printer. "Read them," he urged me. "They're not standard employment offers."

They helped me carry out the last of my stuff. Tony restrained himself admirably, with only one quip about my quality luggage. I spent the night at a Seattle hotel with a beautiful view of the ocean. They'd balked at the dogs, but I proposed an extra fee for their behavior, and the objections vanished. 

The next day I'd agreed to babysit for Laura and Clint while they went on a date. When I got to their house, the kids were disappointed that I wasn't Aunt Nat, but I planned to bribe them into happiness after their mother was gone; she was meeting Clint in town. I'd been fulfilling my earlier promise of babysitting jobs and now had only one left. They loved the dogs, though, and the dogs enjoyed the kids, so a good time was had by all and we went out for ice cream before watching a movie and bedtime. When Clint and Laura got back, they were sleeping like angels. It hadn't been easy to get them that tired.

"Nobody's happy you left," Clint said, kissing my cheek as I prepared to leave. "Promotions is having a tizzy. Wish you'd come back." I smiled and said good night.

I thought I knew the area well enough, but I went the wrong way and spent some time finding out where I was. I usually don't use GPS, preferring to figure it out myself, but in the end I had to turn it on to achieve my rescue.

The dogs were happy to go to sleep, but around three, I finally got up and started to read. Then I ate some cookies that had come with the room and thought. Finally I picked up my phone.


	21. Big decisions are surprisingly easy with the right incentive

I was woken up the next morning at seven. I had gotten all of two hours of sleep. All-nighters are for suckers and college students. I open the door to my hotel room to a hotel employee with a big tray of breakfast. "Room service!" she chirps, and I instantly hate her.

She bustles in and stops dead when she sees the dogs, still crashed on one of the beds. Sigurd wakes up briefly, dismisses her, and goes back to sleep. Torburn just twitches one of his feet. She carefully puts the tray down and hastily unloads it onto the table.

"They're really well trained," I say, yawning, and put on my robe. "The big one is a service animal." She just smiles nervously and heads back the way she came. I hold the door for her.

And in strolls Tony, immaculate in a suit except where scruff indicated he's going to start sculpting his facial hair again. "I don't sleep, nobody sleeps," he says, inspecting the room. "I like this place. I might buy it."

"Could you add to your empire in another room?"

"Nope. I brought breakfast, and this is the thanks I get. You're going to eat a hearty breakfast, missy, and when you're done, you're going to sign the employment contract so you can't back out."

"I won't back out," I say, scowling. "I just want some sleep. "

"You do look a little rough around the edges," he mentions, lifting the cover off one of the plates. "Haul your pretty ass over here and get going." He puts two enormous bowls of dog food on the floor by the water bowls, and the dogs wake up. Sigurd accidentally rolls off the bed and I wince, hoping there's nobody in the room below. He gets up and strolls over like nothing happened. I sit down.

"When have you ever seen my ass?" I ask, taking a sip of the mimosa.

"I'm extrapolating data. Now come on, there's work to be done." Conversation is brief, but in Tony's case at least witty. When I pick up my last piece of bacon, he whisks my plate away and piles it all to the side. The dogs are back on the bed, but they're paying attention.

He places a folder in front of me and opens his. There is a sheaf of paper there, heavily flagged with little post-its to indicate where a signature or initials are needed. My flags are blue, Tony's red.

"Ok, first page is the short form of the agreement. Here's compensation and the terms of your workweek, which is what it was when you were Avenging, you're a workaholic, I'm not worried--come in when you want, leave when you want, work on the projects you get. People will sent you proposals, you accept or return, prioritize them, but you can work on whatever you fancy. Start date--"

"Is not what we agreed to only a couple of hours ago," I interrupt, shaking my head. "It was supposed to be five days."

"I want you back on campus. We need you back. Three."

"Fourteen," I counter, outraged, and it's back to bargaining. And we end up at seven days. A small victory.

We get through the NDAs and all the rest of it when he tries to gloss over a page toward the end. I take the time and read it, because I'm probably not going to like it if he's taking so much trouble to be casual about it.

"Oh, Tony, that's not going to happen," I sigh.

"Why not?" he says immediately. "You said you were never going to work for me again, but here we are, a few signatures more and you're mine."

"Because I'm not an Avenger any more. I never should have been."

"Are we back to that? Because you made a splendid addition to the team." He got a crafty smirk on his lips. "You should be grateful. It's an escape clause. You come back to the team, the contract is null and happily void. If I get to be too much for you, you can always convert your contract." I give him a look and pen an additional term, then turn the page and show him.

"And I promise not to try to make things so bad you'd rather do anything other than work for me," he said, wryly, coping the wording from my term onto his copy. "I paraphrase, of course."

And finally we come to the end of the paperwork, then trade copies and sign and date and initial. Tony finishes first. I don't know how he does it, but it's like he's on speed or something. I know he won't touch drugs, but that's the effect. It's damned irritating.

"Great. Now that you're all signed, up, put some clothes on, and we'll move you back."

"That's not in the contract," I say.

"Yes it is."

I shake my head. "Isn't. Residency is not addressed. I can live anywhere I want." Tony pages through the papers we just signed, then pages through each numbered page again, looking for a missing page, and curses at the omission. There's a clause that guarantees I can bring my dogs, but nothing about where I live, or anything else too creepy and controlling. Victory! I control my smirk.

"Ok, thanks for coming by, boss," I say, getting up. "See you seven days from now. Remember to let the gate guards know that I'm back on the roster."

"I like the sound of that coming from you," he muses, letting himself be pushed out. "Boss." That might have been a tactical mistake. I should get some books and read up on strategy and tactics if I'm going to be fencing with Tony regularly.

I think about going back to bed, but I'm up now. And I have to find a place to live.

After a shower, the dogs and I go for a drive, and I pull up in front of a house I saw last night when I had temporarily misplaced my direction. It's a two story stone building plus what looks like an attic, and a turret on the left side with a new, shiny conical copper roof. The impression overall is kind of shabby looking, but the weeds in the yard have been mowed down. There are some big, old trees in the yard, one with an actual swing hanging from one limb. I walk up the flagstone path, past the for-sale sign, and knock on the door. A pregnant lady opens the door.

"Hi," I say. "I'm sorry to just barge up to you like this, but I was driving by last night and saw your house was for sale." Her face cleared, and she smiled.

"Would you like to take a look around?" she asks, and invites me in. I smile. The entryway is high-ceilinged, with a nice wide staircase going upstairs. "We bought the house about a year ago and did the work to bring it up to code, fixed the chimneys, rewired, all of it. Hot water is on demand rather than a traditional hot water tank, there's a new furnace and air conditioning. We needed to replace a lot of windows and couldn't find enough old replacement glass so we gave in and put in all new double-pane windows and sprayed insulation while the walls were opened up. We wired the place for sound and security, everything we could think of. We kept the wiring for landlines, and you can hook up cable in all the rooms, so you can put a modem wherever you want. About double the number of electrical outlets." She sighed. "Then I got pregnant, and I just don't think we can devote the time to finishing it. The baby is due next month, and we don't want a baby around construction." She looked around. "I love it here, though. My husband and I closed on a new place earlier this month, which is why this house is empty, it's perfectly nice and a lot closer to the ocean, but it's not this place." I nod.

"This place is special." I give her my name and she introduces herself as Kelly Samuelson. She shows me around. There's a half bath under the stairs, a parlor to the right that connects to a formal dining room, which is connected to the kitchen by a butler's pantry, and another parlor to the left, completing the circuit around the ground floor. On the back of the house is a sun room that opens up to a patio. There's a cellar downstairs, which is not the kind of creepy, earthen pit I was kind of expecting in an older home, but finished with nice floors and walls. The washer and dryer were down here as well as an area that Kelly said she used as a pantry. Upstairs is a master bedroom, spacious, with a tray ceiling. What must have been another bedroom has been split in two: a walk-through closet leading to a big bathroom with a six-foot cast-iron bathtub and a separate shower. Windows let in light.

"You don't have to worry about anybody looking in," she says. "The nearest house is a mile away, and there's a lot of woods around." She looks at me nervously. "The Avenger complex is nearby, but we don't see anybody from it. There's an airstrip, but it's pointed away from the house, and the planes are surprisingly quiet, anyway."

I want to shake my head. Figures. "I've actually just signed a contract to start work there," I say. "Nice to know the commute will be short." She relaxes a little and we chat a little about my new job as a metallurgist as we tour the rest of the second floor, which is two smaller bedrooms connected by a bathroom with jack and jill sinks. There's another smaller staircase, and she asks if I'd mind exploring the attic without her. I go up and find there's more than enough room to stand up straight in; the roof is pitched steeply, like an "A" shape, leaving about three feet by the floor that is straight up and down. Bookcases could be built in, I think, to avoid wasting the space. There are bullseye windows at either end, and four skylights provide plenty of light. I descend the stairs.

"How much are you asking for it?" I ask, and she names a very reasonable figure. She shows me the signed-off inspections for the work; there's new wallboard throughout, but only the kitchen, master bedroom and bathroom and the powder room are mostly done. She shows me the patterned tin they'd gotten for some of the ceilings, still in its boxes. The floors were refinished and the fireplaces worked. I'd have to split my own wood, but I could do that; there was a supply of logs in a neat little shelter in the back. The repairs had all been made; it was the cosmetic work that needed to be done, mostly.

It was perfect.

I thanked her and drove to the agency that was selling the house, where I met with both the partner, explaining that I wanted to put an offer on the house and that I was hoping that the sale could be done quickly since I only had a week until I had to start work. Since I didn't have to line up financing, they thought it could be done, and my offer was above the asking price as compensation for the rush, along with the stipulation that I'd pay closing costs. With a new baby on the way, I thought the savings would be helpful. I signed the offer and they set me up with coffee while one of them went to present my offer. They let me bring the dogs in while I waited; as usual, their size was intimidating, but Torburn was still obviously a puppy despite his size and charmed the other partner.

"It looks like you've got security covered," the woman said, smiling as she petted Torburn. I attended to Sigurd so everybody got some attention. When the other realtor returned, she told me with a smile that they were going to accept my offer, and I finished the paperwork, writing a check for earnest money. I was a little relieved; the seller had seemed really nice, but you never know what's going to happen when money is involved.

The next day I went to New York, cleared out my box at the bank and arranged to transfer my account to a branch in the Seattle area. Then I thought about it and texted Bucky, telling him I was in the city and asking if he'd mind if I dropped by the house and took some boxes out of the attic.

BB: No problem. I'm here too. I forgot to tell you in all the activity. Moving out, relocating. Come by.

So I did. He gave me a hug at the door and followed me up to the attic. There were five boxes there, and Bucky helped me carry them down. "Are you moving back here?" he asked. "Have you decided what you're doing yet?"

"No, I'm not moving back," I said. "Now that you're leaving, I'm probably going to sell the house." If it had been one of the other guys, I'd probably have teased him a bit, but he looked anxious. "I'm staying in Seattle." I sighed and shook my head. "I accepted a job offer from Tony yesterday."

"Are you feeling ok?" he asked, feeling my forehead for fever.

I laughed. "Physically, I'm fine. I may have lost my mind, though."

"Maybe," he agreed, and I swatted him. "I thought you said you'd never work for him again."

"It's a woman's prerogative to change her mind," I said.

"First time I've heard you play the woman card," he observed.

'Honestly, I didn't really want to relocate," I confessed.

"What are you going to be doing for him?"

I sighed. "Pretty much the same thing I've been doing for the Avengers." I shook my head. "I love the work."

He shot me a keen look, then began to smile, the big gorgeous smile he didn't do much. "On campus?" I nodded, and he grabbed me in a big hug.

"Good. I've missed you. Constance said not to bug you, but..."

"Are you going to do distance sessions or find somebody local?"

"I'm going to Skype my sessions. When are you moving back?"

"Ah. I'm not. I just bought a house, actually. Or I will be. I close tomorrow."

He looked disappointed but rallied. "Is that why you're taking your stuff?" I nodded and opened one of the boxes.

"My grandma's china and crystal," I said, showing him. "I got the sterling when I cleaned out my safe deposit box earlier. I might just have everybody over for Christmas."

"So where's your new house?"

"You won't believe it," I said, rubbing my face. "It backs up to the Avenger complex. Maybe the dogs and I can walk to work. I bet I can have Tony cut a hole in the fence."

Bucky laughed. I told him a little about the house, and he offered to bring my boxes with his stuff; the quinjet was coming tomorrow to pick him up. "If you're selling, can I make you on offer on the furniture here?" he asked. "I love that sofa." We struck a deal; I'd have just given him the furniture, but I doubted very much that he'd accept anything he might think was a handout.

"Don't tell anybody," I said after we'd talked a bit. "I have no doubt that Tony's got some reveal planned and I'd hate to spoil his fun." Bucky agreed, saying he wanted to watch the reactions, and I said I'd see him later.

"You bet," he said, and closed the door behind me as I crossed the porch. After I left, I went to see an old classmate who was a realtor here and signed a contract to put the house on the market. Now I wouldn't have to come back unless it was for fun. I flew back home late in the afternoon. The closing was first thing in the morning, and I took the keys with a sense of pleasure and excitement. The pups and I went out immediately and I looked around, figuring out what I needed to do, taking measurements. Then I left them with food and water so they could explore their new home and hit Home Depot hard.


	22. Back to the grindstone

I spent most of the rest of the day preparing the house for paint. I masked the windows with plastic and found a really neat plastic adhesive sheet on a roll that I put down to protect the floors. I'd rented a sprayer so that the painting would go as quickly as possible, and before I went back to the hotel that night, I had managed to spray primer on all the new drywall. The dogs went into the sun room, and I promised I would bring dog beds with us the next day. Not all the rooms had overhead lighting, so I'd gotten a couple of camping lanterns and made do with those. We were up with the dawn--the dogs moaned pitiably, but I was firm-- and I stopped at a pet store for new beds and to buy a new bag of food. All this and some toys, and the dogs were happy. The door from the sun room to the outside was a handle rather than a knob, so they could let themselves in and out.

I had to be focused; I wanted the house to be more-or-less ready by the time I had to report to work, and time was in short supply. I started off by spraying all the ceilings a flat white, then moved on. I was saving time by painting most of the rooms a warm white, with a rose cast to it. I like reds, purples, blues, and greens, not yellows or oranges, so this would go with pretty much anything. It would be a lot easier to bring in color with accessories than to paint the walls whenever I got a wild hare. The exceptions to this paint consistency was the dining room, in which I planned to use a rich green below the chair rail and white on top for now until I found some nice wallpaper, a sweet periwinkle in the kitchen, the sun porch's few paintable surfaces would be a light green, and my bedroom a pretty, very light pink. It wasn't as if I was planning hosting an orgy or anything, and lord knows I never paid attention to lighting when I was younger, but now that I had a few years on me, I was beginning to see the value of flattering light. Even if it was just for me. As I painted, I wrestled with what to do with the bathroom. I hated the tile in there. There was nothing wrong with it per se, it just wasn't me. I don't like small white octagons. But it would really put me behind to have to redo the tile. In the end, I reasoned, I could use the full bath across the way while I redid the tile. That bathroom had plain white beveled tiles in the shower, with glass accent tile that was also used as the backsplash for a white vanity, and would look pretty when I painted it in a purple color that was too peppy to be a proper lavender, and I really liked it. I would have to find some how-to videos to see if it would fit in my timeframe. By the time we left late that night, the painting was done in all rooms except the master bath. That was going down. And I had painted the trim in the rooms with colored paint.

The next day I felt I was in a pretty good place. Sure, I was exhausted, but I was making so much progress. I still had the tin ceiling to put up in the kitchen and the butler's pantry, but that was going to take some help. I dropped the pups off at the house and went back to Home Depot, where a very nice associate helped me locate everything I'd need to remove the tile and put up nice stuff. Then I said to hell with it, and bought a new vanity and faucet sets for the sink and shower and the tub. I liked the new low-flow toilet and a medicine cabinet had been installed that had a lovely oval mirror, so that was great. Shelves for towels and stuff had been built in (I'd sprayed those white while I was at it), so I wasn't in that bad of shape, all things considered. The associate in plumbing warned me about overtightening when putting up the fixtures, and advised me to buy some replacement washers until I got the hang of it.

I spent a huge chunk of the day at furniture stores, but I'd decided already that if I didn't really like something, I'd wait to buy until I did. But I was in luck and found a great bed, night stands, and bureau for my bedroom with a cedar chest for the foot of the bed. I planned to outfit one bedroom as a guest room, but didn't know what to do with the other, so I passed on furniture until I figured it out. Aside from lining the walls in the attic with three-shelf bookshelves, I didn't know what I wanted to do there, either. The parlor with the turret would be an office/library, and I found a wonderful desk, a huge, gorgeous art deco beast and a good desk chair. I thought I'd splurge and have bookshelves custom made; I didn't have nearly as many books as I used to, and it would take time to build up my collection anyway. I'd probably have to have a cushioned seat custom made for the window seat that lined the turret. There was a great sectional for the other parlor with a supremely comfortable armchair, a coffee table sized will for the sectional, end tables, and an entertainment center. What I couldn't really find was a table and chairs for the dining room and a sideboard. Lamps where they were needed. I found a great pedestal table and four chairs for the kitchen, so when I was home I wouldn't have to eat on the floor. The dogs were awesome and smart, but they tended to believe that any food on the floor belonged to them. I paid extra for prompt delivery. Then I went to a couple of lighting stores, where I found the perfect crystal chandelier for the entryway hall, another beauty for the dining room, and new sconces for my bedroom. I liked the pot lights in the other rooms downstairs, all on dimmers, which was nice, and the overhead lights in the upstairs rooms and the lighting in the bathrooms was excellent. Then to Bed, Bath, and Beyond and Target for sheets, towels, pots and pans, the lot. After a hurried dinner, I hit Nordstrom for the last stuff on my list: really good pillows, a down duvet, the last of the kitchen stuff, and stoneware, everyday glasses, and cutlery. I'm sure I was missing things, but the bulk of the work was done. It wasn't really the right season to get furniture for the sun porch. I dumped everything at home and went back to the hotel early at nine. We slept in til seven, too.

Then it was full tilt--I alternated running the dishwasher and the laundry, and was interrupted while I was finding homes for everything most gladly by furniture deliveries. The house was clean, but there's just something about making sure it's clean, so I worked my little heart out in the kitchen and bathrooms. The kitchen had stainless appliances, white quartz countertops, white cabinets, and glass backsplash in shades of green that looked lovely and fresh with the paint. Over a late lunch, I found YouTube videos and went upstairs to rip out the tiles in the bathroom. The vanity was delivered and placed in the hall; the delivery guys had some great tips for doing the tile and installing the vanity. Even working hard, I wasn't able to get the tile completely laid.

Time had run out. Tomorrow was the seventh day and I had to report to work. I'd have to wait to finish.

With the realization that I wasn't going to finish, I knocked off early and we went to the hotel for the last night. I wanted a good night's sleep before getting back into the pressure cooker that was Avengers Central.

The next morning I packed up and wore one of the new suits that had been mailed to me from the tailor in New York, did my hair, makeup, stockings, pumps, the lot. There was a clause in my contract, boilerplate that I recognized as coming from HR, that said dress was to be appropriate for my duties, but as an employee, I felt I should do better than yoga pants and knit tops. And it was my first day. I wanted to make a good impression when I showed up. I brought along casual pants, a simple top, and an old lab coat for the actual work.

The dogs seemed to be excited to be going back; I just hoped I wasn't making a big mistake. It wouldn't be easy to get out of the contract if I had. And I was worried about my reception from the others. They could have written me off, regardless of what Bucky said. I checked out, did one more lint roller over my suit, and we got in the car. 

At the gate, the guard peered in the car, verified one person and two dogs, and let us through. First hurdle down; Tony had remembered to update my status. I parked in the garage and, unsure of where I was supposed to be, decided to treat it like an ordinary work day and headed to the shop. I opened it up and looked around. It was good to be back.

A little housekeeping. I took all the stuff related to costumes and dumped it in a box, dragging it out to the porch for pick up. Then I took a cloth and wiped down the flat surfaces. There wasn't any dust, but it made me feel better. The dogs snuffled around, then hit the dog beds. I stowed the bag with my clothes and put a binder on a shelf where I could easily access it. I heard whistling, and looked up to see my boss climbing the stairs. He frowned at the box and plucked out the poleaxes.

"You'll need these," he said, handing them to me as soon as he came through the door. "Contract says you have to keep fit to perform your duties, which may require testing weapons for the team." I put the poleaxes down on the bench and pull out the binder, flipping through it. Sure enough, there's a clause, nicely non-specific. Tony looks at my binder and starts to laugh. I'd put each page of the contract into a plastic sleeve; I was sure I'd be referencing it a lot and wanted to keep it from wear and tear. I sighed and put it back on the shelf. "You'll start back on the obstacle course with Rogers, too." He looks me up and down and whistles. "Tomorrow. So bring workout clothes. In fact, you should just move in again."

"No can do, Tony," I said, smiling. "I bought a house." His face fell.

"Where?" he demanded.

"Well, that's something I wanted to talk to you about. It turns out that it backs up to this property. I wondered if I could persuade you to put a gate in the fence so we can walk to work."

"We?" Sigurd raised his head and woofed, and Tony nodded. "Right. We can discuss that. There are papers to sign from HR, tax stuff, and you can show me on the map." He offers me his arm, and we stroll to the administration block. He asks me questions about the house.

"Why didn't you just hire somebody to do the tile and the ceiling?" he wants to know. "And the painting? Why do all the manual labor?" I drop my hand from his arm and tickled him.

"No," he says firmly, stepping away and holding up his hands. I lunge around him and tickle until he laughs.

"I wanted to get done," I said simply. "I miss having a home."

"Oh,' he said quietly. He offers me his arm again until he holds the door for me.

"That said, I might find somebody to put up the tin ceiling. And maybe finish the tile. I don't really think I like tiling." He chuckles and hits the elevator button, offering to send over one of the site's contractors, since they've already been vetted and do top notch work. I chew my lip as we walk down the hall.

"I really shouldn't, I don't really feel right about diverting work resources to a personal project," I say.

"I look at it as ensuring that my talent isn't distracted by mundane details," he says, opening the door and going through ahead of me.

"Finally, Stark; we've been waiting on y--" Clint's irritated voice breaks off when he sees me. Everybody turns to look. Tony distracted me and I didn't notice he was bringing me to the conference room, where the Avengers have assembled. I'm literally whisked off my feet as Steve picks me up in a big, suffocating hug.

Then I'm crowded and hugged by everybody. Bucky is laughing at everybody's reactions. Nick is standing off to the side, watching. I look at him warily. "I'm glad you're back," Natasha says, linking her arm with mine and drawing me to the table.

"Ah, she's not back to the team," Tony says, cutting a look at Nick. "She's here as my metallurgist."

"I hate when you say that," I complain. "It's like you're saying 'my handbag.'"

"I don't carry a purse," he says, "And you're a lot more useful. I just like reminding everybody that I got the job done and got you back here."

"As an employee," I say, and he rolls his eyes.

"Whatever. I can't nag you into rejoining the team, that's in the contract," he says briskly. I groan. He's just invited the others to do it for him, and I tickle again in retaliation. "Oh, hey, no," hey says, trying to fend me off. "Fine, then. Nobody is to put pressure on you."

Steve holds a chair for me. "So what are you doing?" he asks me.

"Well, I thought I was signing HR paperwork," I say ruefully.

"Nope, we never terminated your employment, so no paperwork. We told everybody you were on vacation. Cinnamon roll?" One of the workers from the caf comes in with a tray of the aforementioned treats and coffee. After everybody settles in with the gooey deliciousness, Tony continues. "She'll pretty much be seeing to our metal needs. If you have questions or a project, email it to her for her consideration. If she can't do it she'll tell you why and we can look at alternate solutions." I look at Tony, then turn to Steve.

"So that's what I'll be doing," I tell him mildly, and everybody laughs.

"Also, she needs to keep in shape, so she'll be hitting the obstacle course." Steve nods. "Starting tomorrow. And she needs to work with that poleaxe again."

"Why, if she's not suiting up?" This is the first thing Nick's said.

Tony shrugs. "She works at the heart of the Avengers complex. We're not the lowest-risk employers on the planet. I'll feel better if I know she's proficient in defending herself." Bucky nods.

"Tomorrow," he says. "Although you should learn to fight in whatever you're wearing."

Natasha touches the sleeve of my suit. "That's lovely. Merino wool?"

"Superwash," I confirm. It's a process that makes the wool really soft and not scratchy. Then there's some chatter, and Vision asks where I'll be living.

"I just bought a house that is, as it turns out, adjacent to the complex," I say.

Clint brightens. "Is it that one with the copper roof?" When I nod, he beams. "We're neighbors. We're just a couple miles away."

"Yes, close neighbors," Wanda says, smiling. Tony brings out the map so I can show him the location and where I'd like the gate. After the fuss dies down and the cinnamon rolls are gone, Tony claps his hands.

"Gotta get back to work. Harrington, give me your key and I'll get a tile guy over."

I take it off my keyring and hold it up. "Do not make any copies, Tony. It is not in the contract."

"I'm sure there's a clause."

"There isn't."

"There should be. Do you want to amend it?"

"No!" I say in exasperation.

"Ok," he says, taking the key. Chuckles start. "Let's get to work, people. I'm not paying her to sit around and look pretty." That might be the nicest thing he's said to me.

"Is there really a contract?" Thor asks.

"There is," I confirm. "Thirty-six pages of it." He starts laughing.

"There are areas that are open to interpretation," Tony says almost primly.

"This will be fun to watch," Thor says in amusement, and Tony puts his hand on my back and shoves me gently to the door.


	23. Getting settled in

Tony walked me back to my workshop and left, and I changed clothes and rummaged around to see what tasks I had left hanging. The first priority was to finish the poleaxe for Bucky so that we could spar. I needed to grind the edge sharp and affix it to the pole, which wasn't much work. I was polishing it when the man himself showed up. I smiled, glad to see him.

"It's nice to have you back," he said, then looked at my work. "Is this mine?" I handed it over and he looked at it with appreciation. "Nice." He tested the edge and looked his question at me as Steve came in.

"It can't hurt me," I say, shrugging. "Besides, I trust you." Bucky looked down and stroked the metal, then handed it back.

"I have your boxes," he said gruffly. "If you'll give me your keys, I'll put them in your car for you." Steve looked between us.

"You knew she was coming back?" he asked Bucky, sounding betrayed.

"I told him I was staying in Seattle and he offered to bring the boxes from the attic of the house with him," I said. "I thought Tony deserved his surprise. He worked hard on the contract," I admitted, then shook my head. "I knew he'd be planning something, and I completely forgot to look out for it."

Steve's expression relaxed and he laughed. "I guess he did deserve that. But what's this about a house?" I rammed the metal head onto the ash pole, which was stained a dark gray and affixed it with screws, handing it to Bucky to try before telling them about buying the house and fixing it up.

"I was going to have to hire somebody to do the bathroom floor anyway," I admitted. "There's this huge clawfoot tub in there. I probably would have gotten a hernia if I'd tried to move it." Bucky shook his head and cuffed me lightly.

"What's the point of knowing a bunch of enhanced people if you're not going to lean on them for favors?" he chided, his voice amused.

I looked at them and smiled. "Because I don't like to ask for help," I said, then leaned on my bench, kind of surprised that I'd answered so honestly, crossing my arms. "You guys have enough demands on you."

Steve rolled his eyes in a rare sarcastic response. "We're friends. It's not a demand if you're friends."

"Unless you state it specifically as a demand," Bucky said helpfully. "But you'd probably spend five minutes qualifying your request, making it perfectly clear that we could turn it down if we wanted and we probably should." I flushed.

"I was afraid you'd be angry that I left," I said in a small voice. Then, to my horror, my eyes welled up and overflowed. The boys looked panicked.

"Everybody was upset," Steve said urgently, patting his pockets. "But never so mad that we wouldn't have come if you'd asked." He held out a handkerchief, exactly like my grandpa used to carry. Then I kind of lost it.

"Did you break my toy?" Tony's voice said sharply, and I looked up. Steve was actually wringing his hands and Bucky was looking between me and the door. I sniffled mightily. Bless Tony for dragging me out of my insecurity.

"I'm nobody's toy," I said, hoping I got all the mascara off under my eyes. Yikes. I'd probably have to bleach Steve's handkerchief. Tony and I started to bicker, then somehow started to bat at each other like cats. Bucky started to laugh, setting off Steve.

"Are you sure your dad wasn't Howard Stark?" Bucky asked. Tony and I froze, looking at each other in horror.

"Yes," I said, relaxing and blowing out a breath of air. Tony still looked horrified at the thought, and I stuck my tongue out at him.

"Are you sure?" Bucky pressed. "You had dark hair when you were younger, you're a genius too, and you bicker like siblings, he's protective like a big brother."

"Mom said once that my dad had really pretty ruddy gold hair. I never cared about knowing who my dad was, but that didn't mean my grandparents didn't know. When I went to work for Stark Tech, my grandpa would have told me. He wouldn't have let me just go to work for my dad without knowing about it. Besides, my grandparents absolutely hated my dad. The only time I every heard my grandma swear was in a comment about him. She displayed quite a grasp of profanity," I said, smiling slightly. "People in town weren't always kind about my mom being an unwed mother, and my grandpa once threatened to kill him if he ever saw him again. In contrast, he always had good things to say about Mr Stark." I looked at Tony and smirked. "I think we are a lot alike in certain personality aspects. We both have barbed tongues, for example. But we're dissimilar in others. Both of us have big egos, I'm just pretty successful in restraining mine." He laughed and flung his arm around me. "I think we bicker a lot because neither of us is willing to back down, especially when it matters. We're both pretty stubborn, and I'm not going to let myself be beaten by Tony Stark."

"So you admit you're intimidated by me."

"Certainly not," I said haughtily. "It's more my philosophy in life."

"What did people say?" Steve wanted to know, smiling.

"When I was a kid, I remember an incident after Sunday school. I walked up to my mom and this old man was telling her that she was going to hell for being a loose slut with a bastard. My mom was astounded. Nobody said anything, but my mom slapped him hard. Then I said--"

"Here it is," Tony said, rather amused.

"That I shouldn't have to go to hell because I didn't have anything to do with it and that my dad was the asshole for running away. My mom just shook her head and we left. It was the last time I had to go to church. When we got to my grandparents' place for after-church lunch, Mom was upset, but my grandparents were livid. When they heard about what I said, my grandpa said I shouldn't call somebody an asshole in church, and I said something about an asshole being an asshole no matter where he was, and my grandma said my grandpa had to quit swearing around me. Her rebuke was slightly softened by the big slice of pie she gave me," I said, grinning.

Steve rubbed his face. "I'm both appalled and amused," he said.

"Was there a followup?" Tony asked.

"Yeah, he made himself unpopular by saying those things to my mom in church, but we still didn't go back. A couple of years later, we were in the supermarket when this woman came up to mom and told her that the man had died, you know, trolling for a reaction. Mom was polite, saying that it was a loss for his family. I looked at her in astonishment, and the woman asked me what I thought."

"And what did you say?" Bucky said, smiling.

"That it was great that he could finally explain to Jesus why he called my mom a slut and me a bastard in His house of worship. She went all "I never!" and bustled off. Mom just looked at me and shook her head, and later my grandpa explained to me that we don't speak ill of the dead because they can't fight back," I recited from memory. "And that sometimes it's ok to be a hypocrite. You know, I kind of feel sorry for my mom, in retrospect," I said. "I was not an easy kid."

Tony was looking at me in fascination. "Was?" he inquired. I smacked him.

There was some silence, and Steve valiantly tried to get the conversation back on track. Any track, going anywhere. "I'd like to see your house some time."

I smiled at him. "If I can find a table and chairs I like, I may invite everybody over for Christmas," I said lightly, and I answered questions about the furniture I picked out. "Don't laugh when you see it," I warned. "It's all just stuff I like, it doesn't necessarily go together."

"I'm sure it looks great," Steve said politely. I looked at him and laughed. The boys left, Bucky with my keys and his new poleaxe.

"Good. Nose to the grindstone," Tony said. "I'm going to send you some specs. I'd like to cut more weight on my suit." He strode out.

When I got home that night, the tin ceiling was up and looked beautiful. The tile was completed, including a corner in the shower that I'd fudged, and there was a note saying they would be back tomorrow to grout. I looked around and smiled. It was going to be wonderful.

The next morning we went in early and I dropped by to see Loki. He was glad to see me and we chatted for awhile. Then I had to leave and meet Steve on the obstacle course. Bucky met us at the finish line and looked at Steve critically. "You don't have to run behind her," he pointed out, and Steve blushed. Now that I thought about it, it was weird. Steve always led from the front, ready to shout back encouragement or to give somebody a hand over the wall. He was always ready to boost me over if I wasn't going fast enough. We made arrangements to train with the poleaxes after I finished calisthenics in the gym. That way I'd only have to shower once.

Clint stopped by my shop in the afternoon when I was thinking about an alloy for Tony's suit. He brought a plate of brownies that Laura had baked as a housewarming present and extended an invitation to Thanksgiving. "The whole team will be invited," he said, "but they might not be able to make it. You know how it is." I accepted with pleasure--I knew that I wouldn't be running around on a mission. When I got home, I called Laura to thank her for the invitation and ask what I could bring. We discussed a little, and I said I'd bring rolls. My grandma had a recipe for the world's best Parker House rolls, it took three risings to get them perfect but they were so worth it. I'd have to make a trial batch to make sure I remembered how to do it; I vividly remember the horrible products the first time I'd made them on my own. I was surprised to see I had less than a week left. I'd have to go to the grocery store this weekend. When I went upstairs, not only was the grout finished, they'd installed the vanity and the fixtures. It looked amazing. I smiled a little to see that one of the packets of washers had been opened and used.

I went shopping again over the weekend for some rugs to soften and warm the hardwoods, getting a soft and fluffy one for my bedside and picked up a few more things I needed. I visited an upholsterer with the precise measurements for the window seat in the turret so I could get some nice cushions to make it cozy. Talking to the guy gave me a few more shops to check out for a dining room table and a new art gallery. I went home with a couple of new paintings for downstairs and a dozen sleek leather dining room chairs and a sideboard that would be delivered. The first batch of rolls was indeed terrible, but the second was much better. It was coming back to me. The batch I made on Wednesday was better yet, and were very much enjoyed the next day. Everybody was able to make it, even the ones who weren't Americans. Everybody seemed to welcome the opportunity to give thanks for something. I know I did.


	24. Festivities

I took the weekend following Thanksgiving off, feeling greatly daring. But I didn't really have any projects yet to work on, so I did it. It made me nervous not to be working. The house didn't really feel like home yet, but I felt that would come. The house was actually too big for one person, even with the dogs, but it was so awesome I couldn't regret it. I thought that part of the oddness of the house was that it was such an abrupt decision to buy, plus I just kind of bought everything all at once to furnish it. I preferred to accumulate over time, but it was really nice to have somewhere to sleep and sit. It was just going to take time to feather my nest the way I wanted it. Maybe I also needed a hobby. The problem with a hobby is that it would have to be something that would produce something useful. I didn't want to just putter.

I spent part of the weekend planning Christmas gifts for everybody. And I discovered that I needed to get an axe to split the wood, as I used the last of what had been split by the previous owners. I really enjoyed the fires; it was really cozy to curl up under a throw, with a fire going and snow falling outside. There was a fireplace in the master bedroom, the living room down below, the library, and the spare room above it. That chimney also had a fireplace in the attic, so I was definitely going to have to do something with that room.

Projects started to pick up again, which made me happy. I hate not having work. I was working on an interesting project, counting atoms in a metal sample and calculating the percentage of elements to estimate purity for Tony, when the scientists who periodically experimented on the windows in my shop to see if they could induce failure trotted up with a new gizmo. I waved at them and relocated to the other end of the workshop, pulling up a stool at the end of the bench and going back to work. There was a big boom and I looked up to see the pane of glass separate from the frame and fall to the floor; I could see that the framing around the glass was blown in. "Hull breech!" I heard the guy behind the gizmo yell as I went to investigate the glass. Still perfect. I straightened up and made the thumbs up to the crowd. They cheered and I went outside.

"What is that?" I asked, as Tony and Steve ran up.

"Sonic ram," one of them said.

"What the hell happened?" Tony said, taking out his wallet and handing Steve a bill.

"They're testing the glass," I say. "It was how I got it in the first place. They come by periodically and try to destroy it. Not a scratch so far!" We do high fives all around, then they go and prop up the glass.

"We'll get Facilities over here, Emma," one of them called out, and I nodded as they collected the ram and trotted away again.

Both Tony and Steve were looking at me like I'd just grown another head. "What?" I said.

"You seem awfully casual that they're actively trying to destroy your workshop," Steve said. "You love it."

"Well, look at it," I said. "The front is all that indestructible glass. The panes are set into frames, so there's not much that's actually being risked. They always test the same corner. And the architect and I designed it so the frames, walls, and ceiling are modular and interchangeable, so it won't even be chilly in the workshop in a couple of hours. It'll all be fixed, easy. The frames are prefab."

"Do they do that often?" Steve asked, looking from me to the workshop.

I wiggle my hand back and forth. "It depends on when they come up with a new gizmo. They scale the method so that they don't actually destroy the workshop. In the spring, they're going to borrow one of the panes and go full scale on the weapons range. Pretty soon they'll have to stop or they'll wipe out that part of the shop."

"I don't like this," Tony said.

"It's planned well," I say to reassure him. "I move to the other end of the shop when they show up."

It was the wrong thing to say. They started yelling at me. "What?" I said. "I trust the science." Again, so not the right thing to say. When Tony said he was going to put a stop to it, I had to put my foot down.

"No," I said flatly. "These are the largest panes of this experimental glass in the world, and part of the price was that they can come and try to wreck it. That was the agreement and it will be honored." I emphasized the last words. They yelled some more but I was firm. I'd actually paid for my workshop, so Tony had no grounds to make any threats or dictates about it, but Tony said that I was his employee. I wasn't even quite sure why Steve was yelling. They pressured me into agreeing to step out when testing occurred. I agreed pretty much to get them off my back. Given some of the testing methods, I'd probably be safest behind the glass they were testing, but I had enough sense not to say that. Steve and Tony looked at each other, all ruffled, and I made shooing noises.

"I'm fine, everything is going to be fixed and fine," I soothed. I managed to persuade them to leave. Finally. For such tough guys who faced peril every time they went on a mission, they were being awfully wussie about a simple scientific test. This one had literally only taken seconds to accomplish. Facilities had shown up and were resetting the glass pane by the time they left. I shook my head and went back to work.

A few days later, I issue invitations to come to my house for Christmas. It makes me a little nervous, but hopefully I'm in time so that nobody has made other plans. Clint's invitation includes Laura and the kids, of course. I still have to find a table, though. Plenty of time.

For presents, I'm making jewelry for the ladies and properly masculine bracelets for most of the gents. The exceptions are for Tony, Steve, and Bucky. For them, I make straight razors out of my special knife alloy since it worked so well during my interrogation of Tony. I make one for myself too; it works great on my legs. Irritation is almost non-existent, and when I used some beard oil before shaving, it produced the best shave of my life. I work on them when I need to clear my head between projects. I also make myself an axe for wood splitting out of a heavier metal alloy. No point in having to continually sharpen the thing, and the weight in the axe is helpful. By the time I check in the next day, I have affirmative responses from everybody, pending any missions, as expected. I smile. Then I realize I need to make sure I have enough plates.

I don't. But it's ok; my grandma had stuck with Lenox; whenever we broke a couple of something, she'd go buy replacements, but in different styles. The only requirement was that it had to be the ivory color, not white, and not to have a pattern. I decided to modify this tradition and bought half plain pieces with a gold border and half with the holly Christmas pattern that they made to make up the difference. And I had to get stemware as well. I started to work on the menu. Laura had done a fantastic job on Thanksgiving, so I had a high bar to clear, and I was out of practice, but I made trial runs of things to see if I liked them. I received an invitation for a New Year's Eve party; I declined since it was going to be held in the rec room, reserved strictly for Avengers, but it was made clear to me that not attending wasn't an option unless I was sick AND had a doctor's note. Steve and Bruce had caught up to me in the caf. Bruce said that Laura had been invited, as well as Maria Hill. Steve didn't bother to sit; he loomed over me in my personal space. Obviously, Bucky was wearing off on him. It turned out that I was eye-level with his below-the-belt region, so I cast my eyes up. "You've been invited. We want you there. You're coming," he said, then stomped off. I looked at Bruce in bewilderment, but he just shook his head and got lunch. Natasha joined us, and after Bruce filled her in, she just laughed and we made arrangements to go shopping for party clothes.

The week before Christmas, I get a pretty fresh long-needled pine tree and ornaments, decorating the tree for the party. I have a few from my mom and grandparents from the boxes that get pride of place. I group some candles in a few strategic spots and put up a nativity and other pretty decorations. I haven't been religious since the incident in church and tend to look on Jesus as more of a cautionary tale, but even I can appreciate the message of hope and love and peace at the darkest part of the year. 

Four days before Christmas, I found a beautiful table. It was made out of curly cherry with a simple string of mother of pearl inlaid around the perimeter about three inches in. Instead of legs, there were two curved U shapes under the top. I liked that a lot; nobody would have to straddle a table leg if we had to crowd around. I went to Macy's after it was delivered to get a tablecloth that would fit and napkins. And some additional serving pieces. And candleholders for some beeswax tapers. And I put in an order at the florist for a centerpiece.

The next day Natasha quietly told me that Wanda and Vision wouldn't be coming to dinner. The visions she could inflict on others were messing her up mentally, and Vision was accompanying her to treatment. With Constance. If I hadn't been worried about Wanda, I'd have smiled. She was fast becoming the psychiatrist of choice for superheroes. I mailed their gifts and a box of cookies.

I was spending the evenings going full out on the baking. I made rolls again, them having been well-received at Thanksgiving, a double batch because I knew I'd be eating them for breakfast and wanted to have enough to serve. I made several different kinds of cookies and pies for dessert. Laura was bringing the most delicious fruit salad for dinner, and Natasha was taking care of the wine, organizing everybody who offered to bring a bottle. At the last minute, Natasha, Scott, and Jim went on a mission. I was a little worried that I'd have enough food even so; there'd be some big appetites at the table.

My guests started arriving early in the afternoon; I'd found a pretty full-skirted dress in a deep crimson that was festive; I put up my hair and wore my pearls. Steve came over with a bottle of wine and flowers and helped me lay fires in the downstairs fireplaces. He said he'd wait until more people showed up to take a tour of the house, or I'd be doing the same thing over and over.

"What's this?" he said in the library, standing by new shadow box hanging by my desk, where I could see it whenever I came in.

I smiled. "That's my grandpa's medals," I said. "He was a corpsman in the Marines, wounded on Okinawa--caught some rounds from a machine gun. That's also where he got the Navy Cross. He kept going out, bandaged his wounds after he got them. That's all I know, actually. His actions are still classified, for some reason."

"That's unusual," he said, looking at me sharply.

I shrugged. "I think there was a lot of secret stuff going on in every theater of war." I nudged him. "You'd have made an ace Marine, but I suppose that every branch of service should have a few standouts." Steve laughed.

"I can't believe you're casting shade on the Army," he said, and we quarrelled lightheartedly. He chose the mulled cider I had going when I offered a drink.

"I like a drink now and then, but my dad was an alcoholic, so I keep a lid on it," he said, accepting the cup. "Although I don't know if my metabolism would allow me to be an alcoholic, come to think of it."

"I don't know anything about my dad, so I'm playing it strictly by ear. Makes me feel adventurous." I smiled at him. "I think I got drinking mostly out of my system in college."

"I can see you as the life of the party," he said, studying me. It was flattering, and I chose not to disabuse him with the reality; I'd gone to a lot of parties but not been the center of any of them.

Then Clint arrived with his family, and the other guys from the complex showed up as well; Tony was still complaining about being forced to walk and use the gate.

"It's not as if she doesn't have parking," he said crossly as I took coats and got kisses on my cheek. Laura helped me collect flowers, a couple of boxes of candy, and a lot of wine, although Tony brought cognac. Sif was a surprise addition to the party but not unwelcome, and fortunately I had her present ready, intending to send it back with Thor. The ladies helped me arrange the masses of flowers in vases and put them out in the other rooms. The guys were wonderful, but there's something about the company of other women that I really love. Then I went around getting drink preferences. House tours self-organized, which I actually preferred, because it was kind of awkward to announce that something was the kitchen, duh. The kids ran outside with the dogs, who were wild for a romp.

Thor took a moment to let me know that he'd brought back the healers' assessment of my condition and turned it over to medical, they thought that the condition wanted to stay stable. It made sense; systems like equilibrium, but in biology all bets were off. I thanked him for his trouble, and he went off with a smile and a big mug of cider. I used the moment where everybody was occupied to set an extra place at the table. I'd asked Laura if the kids would prefer to sit at the table with the adults, in the kitchen by themselves, or in the TV room, and she thought that they'd enjoy the TV room the most. I agreed, I would have, too.

There was time to join my guests in the library where the tree was; I handed out my gifts and received them as well. I got a lot of books for my growing library, although Steve had framed a pencil drawing of my workshop in the fall, when the maple trees around it were vividly red. T'Challa had sent over another ingot of vibranium to play with. I loved the books; they were all just topics the giver had found interesting and thought I'd like; not a bit of armor among them. Peter had sent me a book on historic fashion from the Costume Institute. I loved that kid. Tony gave me a mahogany step stool for the library for whenever I got the shelves built. Bucky gave me a nursery catalog opened to the roses section; I was to choose two roses for the front of the house and he'd plant them for me when they shipped.

I have the best friends.

The dogs hadn't been forgotten, either; they cleaned up on treats and toys. Everybody seemed to really like their gifts. Bucky started to laugh when he, Steve and Tony unwrapped their razors. Tony looked both pleased and vexed, and nobody shared the joke. "What's this?" Steve asked, as people continued to open presents, pointing to a mark on the blade at the back near the spine.

"It's my maker's mark," I said. "It's a pansy."

"You don't use this on your work-work, do you? I don't think I've seen it."

"Nope," I said. "It's strictly for extra-curricular work." He grinned. "Pansies are my favorite flower."

I abandoned the clean up to start getting dinner ready to go out; Clint wandered out as I put on my apron and tied the strings. I asked him to slice the ham as I started mashing potatoes. "You really should come back to the team," he said without preamble. I gave him a look. "You say that you don't belong, but I'm just a regular human, and I'm part of the team."

"You're an archer who never misses," I said, mashing with more force than was really necessary. "I can defend myself pretty well, but I have no combat skills, as I've been reminded."

"But your skills are useful in the field," Clint argued. "You're not dead weight, they're just different. And one thing that you should consider is that the Avengers aren't Fury's to direct. We hired him for administration which he does really well. We used to be his to direct and we got into the habit of deferring to him like that. But we aren't his team. We make the ultimate decisions." We were interrupted--fortunately--by Laura, who came out to help. When she called the kids in to eat, everybody else came in and carried something into the dining room. The kids turned on the TV and, warned that the dogs thought that food on the ground was theirs, hit the sectional to enjoy themselves away from the boring adults. I sat at the head of my new table and enjoyed the company as dishes were passed and conversation flowed. I served sparkling grape juice to the kids with dessert and champagne for the rest of us.

There was plenty of food. Whew. I sent leftovers home with anybody who wanted them. The guys chased me out of the kitchen and did the clean up themselves, even hand-washing the china, stemware, and sterling.

The house was very quiet after everybody left. I sat in front of the library fire, classical music playing low over the speakers, looking through my books before starting the one Nick had given me about the science of music, drinking the last of the cider. I'd already hung Steve's sketch by my desk and made my choices for roses; David Austin heirloom roses. I chose an apricot fading to white one called Jude the Obscure and a vivid red one called Prospero, both with scents described as "heady." I'd wanted to choose the Charles Darwin one just for the name, but it was yellow and I didn't care for it. I hadn't had such a wonderful Christmas since before my mom died.

There was work tomorrow and Peter to prepare for; he was coming out for a visit and as his aunt didn't want him to stay in what she imagined to be an empty dorm during the holidays, he'd be staying in my spare room. And the New Year's Eve party. But for tonight, I just wanted to enjoy the moment.


	25. Decisions are made, people are threatened

I've been out of school for well over a decade, but I always think of the time between Christmas and New Year's as winter break. It was fun to have Peter visit. He remarked that he had applied for a very generous scholarship. I just smiled and wished him good luck; I knew Foggy would be sending him a letter announcing that he had won it in late January. I knew May would be pleased and I was relieved that he'd be able to go to school without worrying about the money. The New Year's Eve party was a laid-back affair the way Avengers parties tended to be. The men wore suits, Thor and Sif wore Asgardian dress up, and Natasha, Maria, and I wore cocktail dresses. Mine was sleeveless with a fitted bodice and a somewhat full skirt in sapphire silk taffeta; I've always liked the sound of taffeta when it moves. We had champagne at midnight; I distracted Steve from noticing that Peter had a glass too.

Peter went home the next day and the house was definitely quieter. I settled back into work and January slid into February uneventfully. On Valentine's day I was accosted by Tony, Bruce, Scott, and Steve. I looked up from lunch warily; the scientists hadn't been by to test anything lately and damage the calm of anybody.

"We had an appearance at the center," Bruce said, poking at my salad to see if he might want one. I smacked his hand away.

"Kids cried because the Armorer wasn't there," Tony said pointedly. "Kids cried. That's on you, Harrington." I just rolled my eyes.

"Page twenty-one addendum of the contract, Tony," I said. "You agreed not to hassle me."

"That's before the children got so upset," he fired back.

"It was only one kid," Scott said. "It might have been coincidental." The other three glared at him and he put up his hands. I grinned at him.

"Why are you being so stubborn?" Steve said, erupting. My eyes opened wide. I've never seen him in a temper. Everybody else, including the table around us, shut up and looked at him in fascination. "It hasn't been the same since you quit." Tony, looking around, made little hands-down, shushing gestures. Steve looked between the two of us. "Are you sure you're not related? You have the same perverse sense of pride." He got up and stomped off.

"You do seem determined to outstubborn each other," Bruce observed mildly.

I grabbed my brownie and went back to my workshop.

I wouldn't say that Steve started to avoid me, but I didn't run into him much. On the obstacle course, he ran ahead of me and pushed me to work harder. I was more grateful than ever that I could go home to my house after work.

In early March, Tony came by my shop and grabbed me, marching me down to the visitors center. Under the heavy rain of the past few days, the roof had started leaking around the skylights, and he wanted me to look at it and see if I saw a solution. It was the second time in a month that it had failed. When we got there, everybody who was on campus was also there: Steve, Bucky, Sam, Jim, Bruce, and Nick. There was also a janitor mopping up the water in the big hall. I trod warily; I had kept my resolution to dress more professionally at work and was wearing dress shoes with my sweater and slacks. Above us, we could hear the tread of workers on the roof.

"What do you think?" Tony asked, and I shook my head.

"I don't know, Tony, I'd need to get up there to inspec--"

I looked up, stupidly, when I heard the sound of breaking glass. Tony shoved me toward an alcove in the wall when the gunfire started; he ran over to the outdated suit he had on display and started to suit up. Sam and Jim were doing the same, and Bucky, Steve and Nick had waded into the fray. Bruce was trying to avoid Hulking out as this would create more problems than it would solve. Steve couldn't get to his old vibranium shield; it was behind bulletproof glass since people kept trying to steal it, so he was bareknuckle brawling. It was utter chaos. I saw the custodian put his mop in the bucket and take out a handgun with a long magazine and point it at Bruce.

In super slo mo, I ran for the man, grabbed the mop, and smacked the soggy strands into the man's face. It was a nasty experience and he dropped the gun. I kicked it toward the wall, put the mop on the floor, and broke off the head. I had a pike now, and I stabbed the guy in the gut, following it with blow from the butt end to the temple, dropping him. I ran for my next target, hearing bones break in his gun hand when I struck it, and I dropped him with another strike to the temple. Trying to spot another target, I saw a man move his targeting laser from me and point it at Steve's unprotected back. I ran full tilt to cover Steve and I felt bullets stitch up my back and felt a fine mist on my face.

My foot slipped on the wet floor and I went down hard. My back was on fire. I saw Steve pitch forward. There was a sudden, awful silence. My ears were still ringing from the gunfire. I pushed myself up on my knees and looked around; the bad guys were down and abruptly my sweater was being pulled over my head. I got my head loose and craned it around to see Steve pressing his hand over the places where the bullets had struck.

"You're ok," he said.

"You're not," I said. His shoulder was pouring blood. I slid my sweater off my arms and pressed it firmly to the wound.

"I know you haven't dated much, old man, but you're supposed to ask her out before taking off her clothes," Tony said, landing by us, but his snark was relieved. "Nice," he said to me. "La Perla?" I just looked at him blankly. "Right. Nobody gets my humor." He picked up Steve carefully and blasted through one of the holes in the roof.

Jim landed by me. "Are you ok?" he asked, helping me up. His and Tony's suits didn't really allow for squatting.

"I've been shot," I said to him in exasperation. "It hurts, but I'm not bleeding."

"I'm a colonel in the US Air Force," he said, "I know it hurts to be shot." He pressed gently over the spots; two of them hurt worse than the others. "You ought to be checked out," and before I knew it, we were rocketing skyward. It was a short flight, but I was freezing by the time we landed. He dropped me off and zoomed back to the scene. I could hear sirens getting louder as I walked in. I was immediately given a blanket and placed into an exam room in the ER. The nurse came in as the adrenaline faded and took my vitals. My blood pressure and heart rate were still up; she wrapped another blanket around me to help me warm up, and a new doctor jogged in.

He introduced himself as Dr Canby and asked what had happened. I gave the basics, and he nodded and listened to my heart and lungs. My wrist had started to hurt a little, and he moved it gently. "So you're the one with the puncture-resistant skin," he said cheerfully . "I've heard about you." I winced. " Thor brought some data from healers you've seen there, I understand." He looked up my patient file, scanning quickly. "Looks like they're in agreement with us; no treatment for the impervious mutation you've got. It should be stable unless it's provoked. Which is good for us. I am going to send you to get an x-ray of your back and wrist." The nurse wheeled me off before I could say anything. The x-ray room was cold; I'd just started to warm up and I was shaking so hard it was hard to get a good x-ray. Then I was whisked back to the alcove and tucked in with more blankets. The nurse handed me a warm wet washcloth for my face. I wiped in puzzlement; it came away with red on it. I blanched. It was Steve's blood.

Then I waited, slowly relaxing as I warmed up, and the next time the nurse came for my blood pressure, it was acceptable. I was really tired. Adrenaline like that takes a lot out of you. Dr Canby came back and brought up the x-ray images. "The good news is that your wrist is just sprained," he said encouragingly. "The bad news is that you've got two cracked ribs, but it's not awful news. You can think of your skin and the top layer of muscle underneath as a trampoline; this is like when a trampoline is hit with tremendous force. It didn't rupture, but you know it's been hit. It doesn't look like the the organs were affected much, although your right kidney might be a little bruised. One shot came close but didn't hit it. So we won't be needing to test your special scalpel blades."

"That is really good news," I said in relief. He started to wrap my hand and wrist. "Do you know how Steve Rogers is?"

"They took him into surgery to repair his shoulder," he said. "It'll take some time, but he'll be ok. Once the bone fragments are cleaned up and the tissue sorted, he should be good as new in a few days." He shook his head. "That speedy healing is a real gift." I nodded. "We'll give you the top to some scrubs so you can go home. Go home and take it easy for the rest of the day. And I'm supposed to tell you to keep to visitor's hours." I roll my eyes. "Cap's the only one brought in for medical treatment," he told me. "After the surgery, he'll be out for awhile, so he probably won't even be awake for visiting until tomorrow morning." His tone was sympathetic.

I took his advice. I texted Tony the results from my exam and that I was going home for the day. The dogs met me on the path and stayed with me, even when the police came for my statement. It didn't take long, and afterward, I treated myself to a long hot bath. My ribs felt like they were on fire. Tony returned my text, telling me he'd fire me if I showed up tomorrow and that Steve had come out of surgery just fine. I shook my head and sank deeper into the tub, chasing the last of the cold out of my bones.

I got up late the next morning, stiff and sore, so I took another good long soak, then went downstairs, lit the fire, and settled in with a book and the dogs. I was surprised when, after lunch, the doorbell rang.

I was even more surprised to see Steve in the door, arm in a sling. "Can I come in?" he asked, and I held the door for him. "We need to talk." He was grim. I indicated the library, slipping around him and getting to the desk chair first.

"The armchair is more comfortable," I encouraged him. When he turned to drag it closer to the desk, I quickly raised the seat of the desk chair and settled in. He sat in the armchair with a grunt. My head was slightly higher than his, and I had the desk to give me more authority.

"I'm sick of arguing with you," he said right away, jaw clenched, blue eyes flinty. "So let me tell you how it's going to be. You're coming back to the team, effective immediately. We need you. I need you. You keep Stark under control with an astonishing combination of smart ass remarks, sweetness, compliments, and the occasional insult. Everybody likes and respects you. Your insights and comments are missed. You set an example. I didn't realize quite how much you contributed until you quit. The light has gone out of the team. Your essential kindness--"

"You're doing well," Tony said, strolling in.

"I swear to god, I'm getting the locks changed," I said in exasperation. Tony shrugged, studying the scene before him.

"Nice work," he said to me. "You've got the advantage in height and authority," he said approvingly. "But it's not going to be enough." He brought over a straight chair. "Don't think of it as losing," he encouraged me. "So just tell me the truth. What is holding you back?"

I smoothed my fingers over the desk. "To start with, I love having a home again. I'm just starting to realize how much I missed it. I like being able to leave work at work and come home. And don't say that the residence isn't nice, it's perfectly fine. But this is mine. I like being able to go anywhere by myself, without an escort for my protection. Even if the threat was trumped up," I said, staring at him through narrowed eyes. He just made a 'move along' motion.

"Let's get your old arguments out of the way," he said impatiently. "You're not trained and don't want to be. I get that. But you are trained. You made a weapon out of a mop. And you used it effectively. Nick...said something stupid. But he runs logistics, intelligence, and administration for the team. He is not the boss. He'd definitely not the boss of me."

"Steve is the boss of you," I say, just to needle him. He rolls his eyes.

"Whatever," he says crisply. "He doesn't have the authority to hire or fire Avengers, and he knows this now. Once he gets fixed on a goal, he doesn't care how it's achieved, so it's for the best that he's not. And we want you back. It's not just a matter of tactics and strategy to be valuable in the field. Your vision is demonstrably useful, even life saving. You helped keep everybody's tech functional, made repairs on the fly, improvised. And, most importantly, you proved that you'd sacrifice yourself to save somebody else." The intensity of his look held me pinned in place. "There's nobody I want more in the field with me." He sat back, the moment holding. "And frankly, if you don't join, you're fired."

And there it went. "Son of a bitch!" I said, jumping to my feet. And winced, as my ribs complained.

"You just had to go there," Steve said in resignation. Tony shrugged.

"We have been gentle with her, waiting for her to come to her senses. She's smart, you'd have thought she'd have figured it out, but no." He turned to me again. "Keep your house. I don't care. It's like a hundred yards away from work. The residence is actually farther from your workshop. You're still free to travel and do your thing on your own time. But whatever you do, don't be a coward. Live up to your name." His eyes flicked to my grandpa's medals and back. I jerked.

"You're not a normal woman," Steve spoke into the silence. "You're not even special. You're extraordinary."

"It's time that you came to the party," Tony said with finality. I rubbed my eyes with the heels of my palms. He tossed a projector onto the table and activated it. I watched as a clip from the action ran. I saw myself react at the targeting dot shift, lunging forward, shielding Steve. The slug that went into his shoulder had ricocheted off me. I rubbed my temple unhappily. "You and Rogers have been on the outs, but you still saved his life, and furthermore, his shoulder would have been destroyed if the bullet hadn't lost energy hitting you first. That's the kind of person I want to fight with. We have just straight humans on the team--me, Hawkeye, Scott, Jim, Sam--and nobody's saying we don't deserve to be there. Natasha's an assassin, not a soldier, even if she did have treatments during her training. Banner is frankly more of a loose cannon than an asset sometimes. But everyone contributes something different. Your skin is a stunning asset that I haven't fully appreciated. You lead, differently from Rogers. You know what you have to do and you get it done, no matter the personal cost. And you care. We all care," he said, gesturing wildly, "but you do something about it. Getting me that shower in the hospital, bringing Rhodey a distraction. Breaking in and doing all you could. You make it personal. So what? Do you want to fly? I'll make you a suit."

"I don't want a suit," I said firmly. "I've been around you when you take that thing off, and...let's just say you're not fragrant. "

"Fine. A baking soda liner." I shook my head.

"No, I don't need a flying suit," I say grudgingly. Steve leans back in the chair and closes his eyes.

"Great. You need a new name. The Armorer makes you sound like staff. I'll come up with something," Tony said, standing. "Promot--" Steve stands up quickly and walks around the desk, putting his arm around me and resting his chin on my head. I relaxed and put my arms around him carefully. Then Tony wanted in, and there was a three-way hug, kind of odd and awkward, but heartfelt.

"Great," Tony said on a sigh.

They stayed for a few more hours; we settled on the sectional and Tony had to bring in more wood for the fire, seeing as how he was the only able-bodied among us. "I could get used to this," Steve said, smiling, his eyes warm again. The dogs came in and stretched out in front of the flames now that the tension was gone and the shouting was over. We ordered Chinese for dinner, and afterward, they got up to leave.

"Team meeting tomorrow at nine," Steve told me as I helped him put on his jacket. "Don't be late." He grinned suddenly. "And now I'm the boss of you too."

"Yay," I said. It didn't come out as sarcastic as I meant for it, and both men smiled. I closed the door behind them and locked it.

I was so getting a locksmith out here tomorrow.


	26. Getting ready to suit up

I woke up feeling really good and content. Then I remembered what had happened yesterday and groaned. I had to stretch really gingerly, but I felt less sore than I had yesterday. Those guys. Double-teaming me with emotional appeals and facts.

How the hell did I end up as a hero? Shaking my head, I rolled out of bed, not disturbing the dogs in the slightest.

Waiting for me in the shop on the end of the bench was a cashmere sweater similar to the one I'd been wearing in the incident that had been ruined by bullet holes and blood, and a new La Perla bra, the sheer Windflower in dark blue. There had been a bullet hole in the band in the back of the one I'd been wearing. I didn't want to think about how Tony knew my bra size. We were going to have a talk about that. Or not, I thought, thinking about how that conversation could go.

Functionally, my day was going to be a loss. My current projects were all the kind that required me to physically form the pieces, and that wasn't going to happen until my ribs were better. On the plus side, I had a doctor's note excusing me from the obstacle course and calisthenics, too.

I did a bit of unnecessary cleaning, then looked up as I was getting ready to go to the meeting. I'd hoped there wouldn't be a fuss. Steve opened the door and came in. "You didn't need to come get me," I said, faintly chiding. "I was getting ready."

"I was in the area," he said easily, smiling. What area? There was just me and the other geeks out here. I smiled at him, not fooled a bit. He looked at the sweater and touched it. "Tony?" he asked, and I rolled my eyes. He grinned. "Nice. Sorry about ruining yours." He blushed when he saw the bra. I picked up my coat to divert attention. He held my coat with his good hand, helping me put it on. I took the good arm lightly.

"How's the shoulder?" I asked as we started up toward the meeting.

"Still sore, amazingly," he said, teasing me. "Even I'll take a few days to bounce back from this. You get a reprieve from the obstacle course for a few days."

"I get the reprieve until the doctor clears me," I said. "I have a note and everything."

"Careful, Grandma, you'll fall and break a hip," Tony said, coming up on my other side. "Can't fight evil in a walker."

"You'll be awfully sorry if the joints in your suit happen to freeze all at once," I threatened, and we bickered all the way to the building. Steve didn't try to referee, walking on with a slight smile on his face.

We weren't the first ones in the conference room, but nobody batted an eye when they saw me. They knew me pretty well. All except Scott. He came around the table to give me a big, careful hug. Then Nick got the meeting started, treating me exactly the same. I settled in to hear about Wanda's progress in treatment. Then there was an update about Natasha; she'd run into 'a little trouble' tracking down the mysterious Smith and was going to be delayed in her return. There were other odds and ends and intelligence to be shared, but no missions on the horizon. About halfway through the meeting, Bucky showed up, surveyed the room, moved Tony briskly to the side, and wheeled a chair around to sit beside me. Nick quashed Tony's protests and I smiled at Bucky, patting his arm, then turning my attention back to the briefing. The attack at the center was next up. I recommended that Tony check in with the geeks to see if they could replace the skylights with the special glass or if they'd have a better suggestion.

"We want to avoid them breaking and cutting people below," I said. "But I also don't know if the prospect of a big slab of material falling through is the best answer. It seems possible that the bad guys might have engineered the earlier trouble with the skylights to see how the team would react."

"They're in custody, right?" Bruce asked, and Nick affirmed this. Bucky reported the results of the interrogations, which was mainly that they'd been hired to take out as many of the team as possible and that Captain America was a specific target. They were among the remnants of HYDRA, but that was the only useful information they seemed to have. Like Night Terror, they'd been contracted through a series of dead drops. We kicked this information around until the meeting ended when a team from Promotions showed up.

Son of a gun. "Meeting's adjourned," Nick said, "except for you, Harrington." He smirked at me and left with most of the others. Bucky, Tony, and Steve stayed, possibly for moral support, but probably to prevent me from fleeing or yelling at the people from Promotions.

"Thank god you're back," the man from PR said briskly. "It's been difficult to respond to inquiries about you. We couldn't very well say you were on vacation."

"Why not?" asked Bucky.

"Because heroes don't get to take vacations," he said crisply. "The public likes to think of you as ever-vigilant. We'll be hinting at a transformative experience."

"Mr Stark has informed us of your change of persona," Marketing said. I looked around Bucky to Tony, who shrugged. "I have to say it will make our job much easier. When people hear of an armorer, they think of blacksmiths, big burly men. It made selling you difficult. As the Paladin--"

"Paladin?" Steve, Bucky and I said in chorus, and she nodded.

"It's an excellent image. A brave, chivalrous knight. It fits in with a generic Western European image and will enable you to continue to wear armor, which the public will expect. We've got a preliminary costume made up to start with; perhaps Mr Rogers will help design more costumes, both for appearances and for the field." She handed me a sketch; a wrap jacket, padded over the shoulders, that was secured with a wide belt like an obi, from the top of the hip to just under the breast, long sleeves, leather gloves, snug leather pants, knee-high leather boots with a modest two inch heel. The leather was dark gray and the fabric bright cobalt blue, continuing the association with The Armorer but morphing it. "Of course, we expect that gamers and LARPers will respond very favorably to this shift, and there will be lots of room for cosplay opportunities. What are your weapons? I understand you don't want them to be identified until they start showing up on YouTube, so we won't release them until then, but we need to plan ahead."

"I have a poleaxe and a couple of war fans."

She noted this down. "Send me pictures, please. Think about a sword. That would really fit your aesthetic. Weekend medievalists seem to pick it up easily enough. Have you named your weapons? That's a good branding opportunity, make them sound like legendary weapons."

I cleared my throat. "Uh, the poleaxe is Mr Pointy and the fans are Martha and DB."

The boys began to laugh as Marketing gave me an incredulous look and shook her head. "Their names lost in the mist of time..." she murmured as she wrote.

Costuming jumped in. "We were thinking about a fantasy-skewed look for you, that way you're not tied into a specific look and you can borrow elements from all over. However, the driving image will be elegant. And lethal. Elegantly lethal," he decided, nodding. I had nothing bad to say about that.

Marketing looked around. "I wish everybody hadn't left. We've also got to prepare for your ComicCon appearance. I don't think you all understand just how big this will be for you. Your main event will be a panel in Hall H, but there are also requests for individual Avengers to show up at other events and I would like to arrange a meet and greet venue for fans where you could just interact." She looked at Steve. "If individual Avengers don't want to be bothered with crafting their own images, we'll do it for them." It sounded like a threat. "But we need a cohesive look. I want you all to show up for Hall H in twists on your usual costumes. Something new and fresh, all in the same theme. Another costume for the meet and greet, and at least one costume apiece for the individual appearances. We'd like your assistance in crafting these images. We need to do it soon so that the costumes and any metal parts can be fabricated correctly." Steve dithered a bit, but when I whispered that this way he'd be able to control his costume better, he agreed to provide preliminary sketches. Tony started humming the theme to "Mr Rogers Neighborhood," and I cracked up. Steve and Bucky looked confused, and PR smirked a little.

We got to run away not long after that. Steve invited me to work with him on some costume ideas, and the other boys had other duties. We went to his room to get his sketch pad; he pulled it out of the bookcase and flipped through to an empty page, then flushed and put it back. "That one's full," he said, and produced a new one. Since the direction was for a mostly Western look that borrowed heavily from fantasy, the looks with the mail shirt and the white armor were in; the Spartan look was out although I planned to keep the helmet with the crest. For inspiration, we Googled women's fantasy armor, since that had been a specific direction.

"Um," I said.

"That doesn't look like.... uh....," he said hastily, and we moved on quickly from the image of mail panties, shoulder pads, and a couple of chains over the bare breasts.

We found a lot of inspiration that provided more coverage, and I set Steve up with a private Pinterest board that he could use to collect images for reference. After a leisurely lunch, we parted ways; I stopped by the shop to collect the replacement bra and sweater and the dogs, and we went home.

After a couple of days, I got the ok to resume training, and Steve ran the obstacle course with me, although he avoided the obstacles and I skipped the ones that required the most upper body effort. A little more time, and I was back to running the full course and Steve was working obstacles back in. I stalled halfway up the wall the first time back, and he went to give my leg a boost, but his hand slipped as I struggled. After that, he went over the wall first, prepared to give me a hand if needed.

One morning, we came in and I found a folder with new drawings in it. The first had the basic tight pants and boots in a dark blue gray, but for the top I had a modern or perhaps fantasy take on a fitted surcoat that wasn't worn over a shirt or armor and was sleeveless. It laced up the front, showing a good inch of skin all the way along, and a collar that showed when the hood was down. The fabric was the same blue gray of the pants but heavily embroidered in silver. The mask was a simple rectangle of fabric with an eyeslit and tied in the back. It was fiendishly stylish but also very dignified.

The second look was a more traditional suit of interesting, beautifully tooled leather armor, with gauntlets, a helmet with an intricate pierced visor to cover the face, my Asgard cape, trousers of some sort, boots, and a heavy blue cloth panel over the front and back of my legs, embroidered with a highly stylized iris. Steve had left a note about how it was impossible to make a pansy look appropriately martial.

I scanned them into the computer and sent them right off to Costuming and Marketing. Then I went back to the white armor. The box with the costumes had, conveniently, never been picked up.


	27. Mission: accomplished

I got a call from Promotion to come pick up the stopgap suit, so I went up after lunch and tried it on for them. It was really comfortable; the jacket was linen, quilted in a vaguely floral pattern with a light inner layer, and the wide belt drew my waist in small. There was a thin protective padding over my shoulders and down the back to help cushion blows from behind. The pants had the same padding over the thighs, back and front. The mask turned out to be a weird polymer that clung to my face and followed my facial movement; it allowed expression but felt really creepy. I was given contact lenses in a variety of colors and told to wear them whenever my eyes weren't covered completely. I had a new, state of the art voice modulator to help keep my identity secret as long as possible. Then they stuck me in front of a green screen and pictures were taken, which flustered me a little. Hair down, in a French braid, up in a ponytail. Somebody was dispatched for my weapons, and I had to pose with them too. Marketing was still disgusted with the names, especially for the poleaxe. I was feeling pretty good about the new costume and the fact that none of the others (Tony) had shown up to heckle.

That was because they were waiting outside. I emerged, carrying my costume, to find Steve, Tony, and Bucky loitering outside the studio. "Great," Steve said with a smile. "Suit up. You're running the obstacle course with your weapons, then sparring with Bucky." I knew better than to say anything about bringing along Mr Pointy although I realized immediately that I needed some kind of carrying solution for it. I really didn't want to hear any more war stories about how he used to run the Army's course with a full pack and that was when he was still scrawny.

Tony smiled cheerfully. "I'm just here to laugh and point," he said. I gave Steve a long-suffering look for inflicting Tony on me and went to change.

The costume worked really well although I was going to add a snap or a hook and eye at neckline of the jacket as it opened farther the more I worked through the course. The boots had leather soles, which were a little slippery on the rocks, but the hard edges helped me scramble up the wall. Steve chided me for throwing Mr Pointy over the wall without checking if someone was on the other side. I patted my face with my sleeve.

"You're right here yelling at me to go faster, Bucky's behind me, and although I don't know where Tony is, if he doesn't have the sense to stand back when he knows I'm coming over, he deserves to be perforated," I said, panting a little. Tony's face poked around the wall and he strolled out, trying to be casual. Steve sighed a little bit, sent me up and over, gave me notes at the end of it, then had me do it again. Tony stayed well clear.

At the end, I patted Steve's shoulder and bent over to catch my breath. I had the feeling that he'd been taking it easy on me until now and that my workouts were about to become a lot harder. "Dogging my steps yelling at me to go faster and all might work in the Army, but I'm just finding it irritating, Steve. Demotivational. Just sayin," I gasped. He looked a little cross, perhaps worried a little that I'd stop in the middle of the course one day and refuse to go farther unless he let up.

He's a very smart man.

After that, Bucky came at me in the sparring ring; I recognized immediately that this wasn't the friendly practice we'd done to this point. I was facing the Winter Soldier, who had picked up how best to use the poleaxe almost effortlessly and who was really fucking scary. He scared me into going full tilt against him, giving everything I had, and it still wasn't enough. He landed a couple blows, one to my leg and one to my ribs that would have at least incapacitated me if not for my skin. The match ended when he used the hook on my ankle and I landed on my back in the dirt. In a flash, he had me pinned and a knife to my throat. We locked eyes, and I knew he wasn't going to let up until I was the best that I could be with my weapon of choice.

"Ok." I stared at him. "Kill me or let me up." He saw that I understood and even gave me a hand up. Then he ran through the things I did wrong. It took awhile.

A new pattern was set; I tried my hardest on the course and Steve only made me run it once a day unless he thought I was slacking off. He took to adding a new obstacle or replacing an old one. Then it was to the gym for calisthenics and weight lifting and again Steve drove me forward, although not like the first time when I could barely walk for days. Then a little rest, and Bucky took over. The first time the dogs saw us really fighting, Sigurd nearly tore Bucky's throat out. Steve and I could barely hold him back; it took Torburn challenging his dad to make him back off. After that, it was decided that it wouldn't hurt to include the dogs too. They frolicked along the obstacle course, taking particular joy in the water hazards, and when I sparred with Bucky, Steve put on a protective suit and the dogs attacked him, learning how to pull back and not actually kill anybody without making the decision that they had to die. Normally they didn't have to restrain themselves. Plans were made to include them on missions. They seemed eager to have something to do, and Thor said that on Asgard they were used on the battlefield and they should be allowed to do something they'd been bred to do, so reluctantly I agreed. Torburn was no longer the fluffy puppy he'd been; he still had significant ground to make up on his dad, but compared to Earth dogs, he was darn big. I would probably always see him as a baby dog. I made a carrying harness for the poleaxe so it could be strapped on my back and a guard for the blades, after I almost severed Bucky's remaining original-issue arm. I'd surprised him and he didn't have time to deflect it. I pulled some muscles trying to pull the blow, but he still had to get stitches. The guards allowed me to go full out against Bucky without having to worry about slicing bits off my friend.

We did this for about a month; both Bucky and Steve thought I made a lot of progress. Then the first test came in: we had intelligence that the mysterious Smith was awaiting a smuggled shipment that was coming into the port of San Francisco. We suited up. I wore my mail shirt for the first time; the unitard thing was nice and warm, and it was cold and damp in San Francisco.

In the cargo area, we split up and started searching for the smugglers. The dogs and I crept along as we swept our assigned area, but there didn't seem to be anybody lurking or smuggling or anything. I paused as I heard a noise, and Sigurd pricked up his ears and trotted over to a shipping container. I heard voices. I reported, and Thor came and twisted off the lock to the container, heaving the door open. Inside were a dozen or so older girls and young women, apathetic or frightened. It stank; the two buckets in the corner were completely inadequate. Then we got the report that activity was headed our way; Thor and I looked at each other and carefully closed the door, shooting the lock into place so that superficially it looked ok. He hopped on top of the container and the dogs and I made ourselves scarce.

A group of men in dark, well-cut suits arrived, a limousine trailed by two big, black SUVs with blacked out windows. One of the men looked around when he saw the damaged lock but must not have seen us; he shrugged, hearing the shouting from the women in the container, and opened the door. The men flinched back in distaste from the odor that welled forth; the first man grabbed a woman by the arm and dragged her out for inspection. There was some conversation in a language I didn't understand, and one of the men ripped the clothes off the woman, who began to cry as the men inspected her body. Another man handed the first one a briefcase.

"Go," I told the dogs, hearing reinforcements arriving. Thor hopped off the shipping container (nobody ever looks up for threats, dumbasses), and I followed my dogs, surprising the crap out of the suits. The woman was released in the face of our new threat and ran back into the container, screaming. I brought down Mr Pointy on the arm of some jerk who thought he'd shoot my dog. The blade cleaved his forearm quickly and easily; it was like cutting butter. Cold butter, but still.

By the time our reinforcements actually arrived on scene, the bad guys were down and I was putting a tourniquet on the one with no hand. Steve slowed, looking around.

"This is anticlimactic," Bucky said.

I panicked a little when I saw the shadows behind him move. Bucky crumpled, struck in the side with a knife. I lunged forward, a full, deep lunge, falling just short of the assailant, who knocked the pike aside and went for his gun. I threw one of my closed fans at him, distracting him, then sprang forward, snapping open the other fan and aiming for the bridge of his nose and his eyes, raking the edge of the fan across his face. Around me, Steve, Thor, Hawkeye, and Scott were in on the fight, and movement above me let me know that Sam had joined the fray. I heard snarls and growls that would have terrified me if I didn't know my own dogs. It was over pretty fast, and Sam confirmed that this seemed to be the lot. Steve picked up what seemed to be the man in charge and demanded information. He smirked at Steve and said nothing.

I looked over at Bucky, who was being attended to by Sam. I didn't want to waste time on this piece of crap. Scott had opened the briefcase; there was money in there, but not what I'd expect for so many women. And some files. I pulled out a little remote--I'd made a little pocket--and hit two keys, then walked up to Steve.

"I don't have time to beat around the bush," I said to the man Steve was holding. "Tell us now what the details of this venture are and with whom you were doing business." You could hear the words in English, under the translation that was coming out of the voice modulator. The guys stopped what they were doing and gawked at me.

"Or what?" the man asked contemptuously. My earpiece translated.

"Or this," I said grimly, and brought up my fan hard between his legs. I listened to him scream and sob, checking the time on the smartphone he dropped. I tossed it to Hawkeye to look at. Thor picked up Bucky and they left for the quinjet. I waited until the sobbing let up a bit, and asked my question again, politely. This time he answered, although his face was contorted with rage and pain. I looked at him, unmoved. After he finished, Steve had Hawkeye call the police; the boys took care of the defeated men, searching them and zip tying their hands together. I addressed the women in the container, telling them in three different languages that the authorities were on the way and that help was coming. Then I made a brisk statement to the prisoners just before the authorities arrived.

We gave brief statements to the police. "And you are?..." one asked me.

"Paladin," I said for the first time, standing straight. I described briefly what had happened, called the dogs, who were sweet and friendly, with wagging plumy tails, as long as you ignored the blood on Sigurd's chest. His muzzle wasn't bloody, so he must have just encountered it somewhere. As soon as the police released us, we walked quickly to the jet, disgusted. We'd busted a human smuggling ring, which was great, but it wasn't connected to Smith.

"What was that all about?" Clint asked as we walked up the ramp. "The voice thing."

"It's a new feature," I said. "Translating earpieces." I looked around at the blank faces and shook my head. "Guys, it was in the brochure." I went to the cockpit with Clint and opened the glovebox, picking up one of the remotes. "It still has to be activated from the jet. I get the translation of my voice because it's built into the voice modulator." I tossed the remote back in and closed the glove box, going back to see if Sam needed any help with Bucky. The wound wanted to close but it couldn't be allowed to because the intestine had been nicked and the abdomen needed to be cleaned. The AI recommended allowing the intestine to close itself, then flush the area with sterile saline before inserting something to keep the wound open for the doctors to take over so that there would be no infection. I helped Sam flush the wound, and Clint fired up the jet as we took our seats.

"What did you say to those guys at the end?" Scott wanted to know.

"Told them that if they were going to be casual rapists, to think again, because if I heard about it I would find them and rip off their dicks," I said calmly.

"Oh," he said. The boys shifted uncomfortably. Back at the base, Bucky was whisked off to medical and was able to rejoin us toward the end of the briefing. Nick had gotten feed of the action, and we reviewed it. I got good reviews on my work and the addition of the dogs had provided a good benefit. They were scary and provoked a primal fear in their targets. I got home in the late hours of the night being both reasonably pleased with the job I'd done and dissatisfied with my weapon. It required two hands, wasn't particularly intimidating to tough guys, and had a limited range. I didn't know what to do about it, though; I didn't want to take up a gun and start shooting people.

We got up late the next morning and took the path to the compound, not sure if Steve was expecting me or not. We found him in the cafeteria and decided to join him. I can always eat.

"Bucky's fine today," he told me, and I smiled. Just then, Bucky and Tony joined us. Tony was irritated to have missed the mission and wanted to hear about it. Then we decided to take a day and be aimless, so we went to the rec room and hung out. Promotions burst in right after we'd gotten ourselves settled and beelined for me.

"We're getting such good press!" the guy from PR practically gushed. He brought up a news report that featured some of the yard's security footage. They'd isolated me peering around a container, then signalling the dogs and following them into the fray. "We've had inquiries from all over the world about the mystery woman and the dogs!"

"We were sure to follow them up with the footage of the dogs being playful on the way back to the quinjet," Marketing said, frowning slightly at PR. "Make sure people don't think they're hell hounds."

"That's good, maybe we could call them hell hounds," PR muttered, missing the point entirely. "Sounds scary, gives her another dimension." He moved over to the big screen, turning it on and bringing up the internet. "You guys are really trending, especially you, Emma. Women are loving you, especially the threat to rip off the dicks of the human traffickers. But now you can't do that or they'll know who did," he cautioned me. "Guys are split; some think you're sexy and the rest are trolls." He shows us comments from superhero fan websites; a lot of the posts about me are positive, my dogs get a lot of respect, and people seem to like Mr Pointy. There's confusion about the fans because they didn't show up clearly on the cameras. There are the usual posts debating which guy is hotter and offering to have the babies of all of the male Avengers, which makes Steve testy.

"That would be irresponsible," he seethed. "We're real people, not pieces of meat." Tony patted his shoulder.

"It would be a way to snag a hot guy like me," he said airily. "They have a fantasy about being a little family. They'd get sick of the reality pretty quick."

I also have offers to bang me (as long as the dogs are in another room) and a made-up theory that I'd chased the other two women off the team so I could sleep with everybody, but there are also negative comments about my performance and opinions that I had no business thinking I was the equal of my teammates. "She doesn't look like she's got superpowers," one criticized. "Just another c*nt thinking she's as good as a man."

"Damn, I did forget to use my heat vision," I muttered.

"Turn it off," Steve barked at the PR man.

"This is why we don't look at fan comments," Tony said brusquely.

"Why aren't you upset by this?" Steve demanded to know. "They're writing some terrible things about you."

"It isn't pleasant," I said, "But we live in an uncivil society. Or is it incivil? I'm not sure. I think it's uncivil."

"The Paladin is a paragon of politeness," Tony said, poking at me.

I swatted his hand away. "Women gamers get a lot of abuse, and so do women who do stuff that threatens what some men consider to be their domain. The internet makes jerks bold because they can hide behind a screen. You can't win against the troll army. "

When Promotions leave, finally, they've sucked all the fun out of the room. Steve leaves soon after, Tony on his heels. Bucky asks me how I felt about my first real fight. He listens to my thoughts and concerns, and nods, thinking it over. "I've got an idea that we'll try out tomorrow," he said thoughtfully, and he left too. The dogs and I walked to the workshop. I went back to my research. It's not that I don't trust Bucky to find a solution, but I feel better working on the problem myself.

By dinner time (late) I have a workable prototype.


	28. FINALLY  it's July

The next day, Bucky showed up with a target and a set of throwing knives. You'd think it would be pretty easy to learn, but no. It was very frustrating to watch the damned things bounce off the target. Bucky, of course, hit the heart or the eye every time in a tidy, quivering bundle of metal. I think my ineptitude irritated him. I cheered when I finally threw one that didn't bounce away energetically; it hung in by the tip for a moment then fell out. I shut up. Steve suggested a change to my throwing motion; Bucky argued that these were knives, not oversized Frisbees, and they argued as I kept failing. Finally I'd had enough of it, collected the knives, barked at both of them that this wasn't a good learning environment and that non-super soldiers are not going to pick up weapons and learn them instantly, and stomped off to my workshop. I shook my head as I dropped the knives at the end of the bench. This is something you can't intimidate somebody into doing. I watched some YouTube videos for beginner knife throwers and let it sit in my brain for awhile while I worked. After I knocked off for the day, I went outside and tried again. Without Bucky and Steve fussing and a better understanding of the mechanics, I managed to do better. Not close to where I was aiming, but the knives hit the target and stuck much more frequently.

The next morning, Steve apologized before we started the obstacle course. I think he felt bad about yesterday because he was particularly encouraging as I increased on the bench press. I was going for a hundred pounds, and it was a real struggle, but I managed it. He praised me for my big achievement, then waited until I was leaving to start his workout. I shook my head. The man can bench press twelve hundred pounds. I knew because I'd made the special barbell for him that wouldn't bend. He's quite kind as a coach. The main problem is that neither or Bucky is the world's best teacher, or even a particularly good one. They learned things themselves, but Bucky was naturally gifted with the ability to pick up sports and physical activities quickly, and Steve's abilities in that arena were part of his Super Soldier upgrade. None of them ever learned to teach anything, and that in itself is a gift. Bucky didn't apologize, but I think we'd both been watching the same YouTube videos. This practice session went much better.

That afternoon I made the first prototype of an urumi. I kept it to one blade to see if I liked it and if it was worth pursuing. I put on protective eye goggles, made the dogs stay in the workshop, and scanned the environment for heat before beginning. I was really lucky that I was impervious, because my clothes quickly cut as the blade nicked me. I probably shouldn't have sharpened the edges until I learned to use it better, but it was an automatic process: make the weapon, put an edge on it. Unlike the knives, I seemed to be picking this up pretty quickly. Probably because it doesn't rely on precision. I focused on keeping the whip--which is essentially what the thing was, a metal whip--moving; it was much easier to keep striking when it was constantly in motion. The tree I used to use for poleaxe practice took the brunt of this weapon too, but the damage was quick to accrue. It was an awful weapon; it buzzed and sang threateningly as it flexed and the harm it could cause would be significant. But I found it pretty easy to get used to and I was strong enough that it wasn't terribly taxing to wield.

I practiced on my own for a couple of weeks, during which time I created a three-tailed urumi from a special alloy, created a flexible handle that stiffened when pulled straight, and altered the design some to fit my personal style better. I sewed a pocket in the wide belt of my training clothes (I'd taken to wearing that first stop-gap uniform for training; it was really sturdy and helped to keep me focused on the purpose of the workouts, which was to keep me in one piece in the field) and lined it with cut-proof fabric. The urumi slid in docilely and the flexible handle curved against me unobtrusively.

I was making progress with the knives too, just slower. After one practice, I asked Bucky if I could show him something, and he consented, mildly curious. I slid the urumi out of my belt, and keeping Bucky well out of range of the thing, proceeded to pretty much debark a couple feet of a dying tree. I'd scouted it before, not wanting to target a healthy one. The difference in materials and design created a grating whine when the metal flexed that sounded dreadful. I coiled it and looked at Bucky; his mouth hung open. Then I set up a couple of watermelons. Two passes with the urumi and they were in chunks around the clearing.

"What the hell is that?" he said, and I carefully cleaned the tails as I explained when I'd first come across it, why I'd decided not to pursue it initially, and what had changed my mind, that first action as Paladin when I'd been unable to defend him.

"I still don't see this as my primary weapon," I said, not looking at him as I slid it back into my belt. "It can't be used if there are civilians around, or even in crowded conditions during an action. But I can see where it would be very useful." Bucky nodded.

"I'm not going to lie, that's about the scariest weapon I've seen in action." He shivered suddenly. "I'd rather face a gun. The sound that thing makes..." He suddenly smiled. "But if you have to use it, it'll help keep you alive." He asked me to make a version for practice that wouldn't be sharpened; he had some ideas for helping me improve. We still trained with the knives as they were a more practical weapon and more useful, but he started showing up in specially padded clothes, face shield and brought along a small shield to deflect my strikes. He tried different weapons so I could have a real fight, but a quarterstaff seemed to work the most effectively. I made him a metal one and we started dividing the practice sessions into thirds: knives first, then the poleaxe, then the urumi.

Steve found out about it the next month; Bucky's eyes went over my shoulder and he immediately halted the action. I let the urumi coil around my leg instead of striking at him and turned. The sick singing buzz of the blades stilled and there was a momentary silence. "What is this?" Steve asked, and I explained. I couldn't tell if he was mad or not. "When were you planning on telling me about it?"

"When I got good enough to take it into the field," I said. He studied me a few moment, then nodded.

"In the future, if you start training with new weapons, I'd appreciate a heads up," he said, and left. Bucky tossed me his quarterstaff and followed, so I figured Steve was a bit upset and let him handle it. I don't know what they talked about, but the next day training continued as normal.

Bucky cleared me to use it in the field in late June, and after that I demonstrated to my teammates, who had the same blend of fascination and repulsion the rest of us had for it. Shortly after that, Wanda returned from treatment; it was really good to have her and Vision back.

And she was just in time to join us for ComicCon.

To provide cover, Peter's pass was "won in a lottery at work," as he explained to his Aunt May. When she called, I said that I was going too and that I would keep an eye on him. That made her feel better about him going by himself, and it was arranged.

It was kind of "Avengers Day" on the last day, which meant that we had three days to geek out, plus Preview Night. Scott, Peter, and I were the only ones who were over the moon; the others had varying degrees of interest, except Thor, who didn't have any interest at all. I wasn't sure he understood the cultural significance of the San Diego Comic Con. Peter, Scott and I had long Skype conversations, poring over the map of the venue and the schedule. The fourth day was going to be pretty much a wash for us: we had the big appearance in Hall H at ten ("I always think of Hall H as the Hall of Heroes," Peter confessed), then individual appearances for a few hours, then the meet and greet at two; none of our events were at the hotels. It wasn't just us, though; our costumers had a panel to describe the challenges of designing for superheroes. They were using some of my outfits to illustrate their process. At the last minute, in an effort to provide something special to the educators who were attending panels at the beautiful San Diego central library, event organizers asked if I'd be available to attend a session on nerd and geek culture in high schools and college on the third day. My appearance wouldn't be publicized beforehand. I agreed enthusiastically, and worked up a brief presentation from fan mail that described how girls viewed geek culture and how it helped them navigate the social eddies of their schools. The mail from college girls was more risque sometimes and a lot funnier in general.

There was plenty to keep ourselves busy until then: movie studios and special effects, including WETA Workshop and Lucasfilm, and anime and comic book publishers all had presences on site and the studios provided special screenings of trailers and movie clips. There were TV networks and toy manufacturers, a wing for gamers, and vendors of all kinds. And the panels. There was a special authors panel featuring Neil Gaiman, Lois McMaster Bujold, Annie Bellet, and John Scalzi, and the usual panels with actors from tv shows and significant upcoming movies. We used their SCHED tool to create our ideal itineraries and noted where we overlapped.

We went down before the others; Tony said he was irritated by my nonstop quivering anticipation and sent me down in one of his company jets so as not to blow my cover by using a quinjet. He did the same for Scott and Peter; since May drove Peter to the airport, this helped to reassure her that everything was on the up and up. The con organizers had arranged rooms for us; we were all on the same floor but not in a block of rooms, which was more discreet. Some of us had secret identities to protect. We dove in, total immersion, for the first day. I'm not lying when I say it is geek heaven. The cosplayers are so much fun and so creative. I about fell off my chair the first time I saw one in Paladin gear. She'd done a really good job, too. The others showed up the next day but spent the rest of the day seeing the sights, Sea World, all that. Pfft. I didn't see them until Tony made us show up for dinner in a private room at one of the city's best restaurants. The three of us were forcibly separated so we would shut up about the con.

The next day everybody decided to take in the con. I encountered Steve midmorning, looking harassed. He took my arm above the elbow and steered me abruptly behind a wide fabric partition.

"There's a bunch of girls who think I'm Captain America," he explained in a low voice, and I smirked at him. He flinched when we heard voices on the other side of the partition.

"It's gotta be him," one girl said in a nasal voice. "Did you see his shoulders? And he's blond, too."

"Could be a cosplayer," another girl said, slightly doubtful. "Why would Captain America be hanging out in the anime section? Where are the other Avengers?"

"I wonder if he's dating anybody?" a third voice asked. "Do you think he'd date a fan? You don't think he's gay, do you?" she said, evidently horrorstruck. I clapped my hand over my mouth to stifle the giggles. Steve rolled his eyes at me. "You never see him with anybody, unlike Tony Stark. What a waste that would be."

"Let's look around," the first girl said. "He can't have just disappeared. Maybe I can get him to sign my boob."

Steve's eyes widened and he looked a little panicked. "Sorry," he said, then put his arm around my waist and tangled the other hand in my hair as he kissed me.

"Darn," I heard one girl say.

"Pretty hair," another said. "Bet that's a salon job." I didn't hear anything more. When the kiss ended, I moved my hands away. He let go of me like I was on fire.

"Um," I said intelligently.

"I'm going to get a ball cap," he said, flushing a little. "Any recommendations for a fan-repellent look?"

I blinked several times. "Uh, try the Fantastic Four," I said, shaking my head to get back in the game. "That last movie sucked."

"Right," he said, and strode off. My phone rang. It was May, apologizing for calling, but she just wanted to know how her nephew was doing without having to call him. I smiled and told her it was no trouble, that he seemed to be having a great time and was fine.

Later, I was supposed to meet Scott and Peter in a schwarma restaurant in the Gaslight District. I squinted as I exited the convention center into the sun, and found the place. My word, it was hot. I ended up following a couple of Stormtroopers to the restaurant. No wonder they can't hit anything; they're probably boiled like lobsters in their uniforms. The guys were chatting and grinning; I waved at them and got my meal before joining them. Yum. Tasty.

"I saw Steve earlier," Scott was telling Peter. "He picked up the most awful cap as a fan decoy. Fantastic Four." Peter wrinkled his nose. "It must have been bad. He looked totally addled." I choked on a bite of lunch, and Scott helpfully pounded my back.

The the conversation righted itself and we discussed what else we wanted to see. After lunch, I had my appearance at the library; the costumers were meeting me there beforehand so I wasn't wandering around in uniform. It felt weird for me to be addressing a group of professionals and Costuming and I had worked a lot before coming up with a costume that wasn't absolutely over the top; it was still ComicCon, after all. It was a highly tooled and colored blue and white leather bodice with a hood and a full, flowing long white skirt; kind of a gateway costume between what I usually wore and what was coming. I had a mask for my lower face and I wore the bright blue contacts since my eyes showed. When I was introduced, there was silence that lasted long enough for me to worry, then a storm of applause, which, I won' t lie, was gratifying. I talked a little about the fan mail I'd received from girls and young women about why they liked geek or nerd culture. Some of it was feel-good; they liked finding fandoms and connections and their interest in math and sciences was heightened. Then there was a trend away from STEM subjects as they entered high school and college; the girls who saw themselves as out of the mainstream in their schools were the ones most likely to stay with it because they weren't afraid of challenging boys or looking too smart. The college women were more likely to reengage in geek culture for the fun of it and tended to select sexy costumes for cosplay events. There were some funny stories and stories of support from online communities, but there were also the letters from girls who used the other worlds opened by fantasy and science fiction to mentally escape abusive situations or loneliness and stories about being bullied online for calling themselves geek. Everybody was very complimentary afterward, and I was glad to have the opportunity to visit the gorgeous library and contribute something.

Then I left the library after changing and went back to the con, where I focused on making sure I'd seen as much as I could. I was consulting with Peter and Scott between panels when we saw Joss Whedon. He was talking with Nathan Fillion, Jewel Staite, Alan Tudyk, and Summer Glau. I almost expired from geek overload. He saw us looking, and after finishing his conversation, came over to shake our hands. I tried not to gibber, but I guess he's used to that. He asked if we could keep a secret, and we nodded like puppets. "I'm moderating the Avengers panel tomorrow," he confided. Scott looked like he was going to pass out; the identity of the moderator hadn't been announced.

"We're going to be there!" Peter exclaimed.

"I'm really looking forward to it," he said. "I'm a big fan of the Avengers." With a parting smile, he left, probably to encounter more swooning fans.

We steadied ourselves and went on to a panel on real life heroes and their comic book counterparts; we were a little late, so we stood in the back with other latecomers. About halfway through, they brought up Captain America's stint as a war bond promoter and comic book hero before he went to the European theater to begin his legendary career as a real hero. "I'm a huge fan of Captain America," the man next to me murmured. He looked nice, inoffensive. "I even had an original set of his trading cards at one point," he said as I smiled at him. "Mint condition. Slight foxing around the edges." A beautiful Asian woman materialized on his other side.

"Phil, we need to go," I heard her whisper, and with a final smile at me, he left. I tuned back into the panel. After that was the panel with the awesome authors, then another dinner with the whole team. 

Scott teased Tony about the fans of his that he'd encountered, mostly females. Peter reported that Sam and Jim were quite popular among vets, not surprisingly, and had some funny stories about fans for other Avengers.

"I met a guy who said he was a big fan of Steve at a panel today," I offered. I smiled at him. "He said he even had a set of vintage trading cards. Apparently they were mint, just a little foxing." Both Steve and Natasha perked up. A lot.

"The last time I heard that..." Steve said.

"It's not possible," Natasha said. "What did he look like?" she asked me.

I thought about it. "Pleasant. Middle-aged, but in really good shape. Slightly receding hairline, nice voice. Ah--almost forgot. The woman he was with called him Phil."

Cutlery clattered on china as Steve, Natasha, Tony, Thor, Bruce, and Clint all stared at me in shock.

"That's not possible," Tony said. "He's dead." I spread my hands and shrugged. Natasha took out her phone and found a picture.

"Yeah, that's him." Scott, Peter, Jim, Sam, Bucky, Wanda, and Vision were as mystified as I was. We listened to the others debate; apparently Thor had seen his brother kill this Phil.

"Gotta go," Tony said abruptly, and they rushed from the room.

"Weird," Jim said.

"Liveliest zombie I've ever seen," I said. We finished our dinner pretty much in silence, then went back to the hotel.

The next morning, I was up early. Costuming did a perfect ombre on my hair that shaded from electric blue at the ends up to my white roots and gave it a kind of Gibson Girl style. I had that funky full cover mask made of the weird polymer so that my facial expressions would be suggested, so I didn't need makeup for this look. Then they helped me into my dress, and drove me to Hall H, where I met the others off stage. The senior Avengers were still agitated, although the form of the agitation had changed. They hadn't found zombie Phil, but apparently Nick knew he'd survived. And hadn't told them. I sighed. These guys and their secrets. Even their secrets had secrets. Promotions had to speak sharply.

"This is not the time for personal drama. These people are here to see you, not your issues. I expect you to go out and put this aside."

Then we heard the hall roar as Mr Whedon took the stage, and somebody started playing "We Will Rock You" as Mr Whedon introduced, "The leader of the Avengers, the Sentinel of Liberty, Captain America!" Bucky had to give him a push to get him moving. We were up.


	29. Con-sequences

It was vaguely terrifying to walk across that stage; fans were standing, shouting and clapping. Somebody had cleverly mixed the order of presentation up so that the energy didn't dip much when those of us who were less popular (essentially, those of us who weren't in on the Chitauri invasion, minus Bruce, who wasn't a participant at the con, and plus Bucky, who had been embraced in a big way now that he had been deprogrammed) were introduced. The art costumes that we wore excited a big response; the theme for this panel was kind of a fantasy look; the three women wore dresses with armor elements, and all the men wore some kind of armor. Because these outfits were just for show, creating them from metals that were easier to work went a lot faster and I was able to get everything done for everybody although it had been close. My dress was strapless, ombred from electric blue at the hem to white at the top, and long, the light fabric softly pleated. There was a metal shoulder and arm piece, both of intricately pierced and filigreed white metal. They'd been set with tiny white crystals for sparkle. Wanda wore a medieval look, with long chiffon sleeves that were attached with ornamental clips to the bodice, and Natasha wore a long embossed black velvet dress with long sleeves and high collar, and a dark red ornament at the waist that blended with the pattern on the fabric. The guys all wore varying suits of armor, all rather outrageous interpretations of their usual gear. Tony's was so over the top that he couldn't sit down while wearing it. It was quite noisy when they walked. 

In order for the audience to get the full effect, the long desk that was placed across the stage was pushed to the back and we had chairs near the edge of the stage instead. Mr Whedon exceeded expectations as a moderator, engaging with both us and the audience, and I was almost sorry when it was over.

As soon as I got off the stage, I was hustled off for a costume change; the new dress was still long, but fitted and had shoulder straps. It was white, the shoulder straps helping to keep a dainty standaway metal collar in place. My hair was arranged differently to a sleeker style, the mask came off and I was allowed to suck down water. I put on some gauntlets that looked more like gloves, and I was off to the panel where it would be just me and an audience. And fortunately, this was only scheduled for an hour. Then I would have an hour off, and the final event, the meet and greet. I wasn't expecting much in the way of audience; Bucky, Natasha, Sam, and Vision were also having their individual panels, with Tony holding court in Hall H. Peter didn't have a panel as we were afraid that it would come out that he was a high school student. The next hour, the rest of the group would be speaking. Steve and Thor would both be in Hall H due to the expected high demand for entrance to the event. When I walked across the dais in the small room, I was surprised to see about seventy-five people.

I sat down in the chair and remarked how thrilled I was to be at ComicCon, then the questions came. They wanted to fill in my very sketchy biography (sorry, see secret identity) and I got a lot of questions about what it was like to work with the other Avengers.

"Doesn't the Winter Soldier scare you?" one kid wanted to know.

"At times," I said. "When he's working with me on my weapons, teaching me to be better with them, I can see his training in him, and it is kind of scary to be on the receiving end of that much intensity and skill. But if you're asking if I'm scared of him just running into him at lunch or hanging out, the answer is no. He's a really nice guy."

"What's it like to train with him?"

"I find I work really hard to progress," I said, and that got a laugh.

"Why don't you have your poleaxe?" someone else asked. "Where are your dogs?"

"The con asked us not to be armed," I said, fanning myself slowly with the signalling fan. "Safety first. As far as the dogs go, I wish they were here because it's so much fun, but again, only service dogs are permitted, so they'd be so bored locked up in the hotel room."

"What kind of dogs are they?"

"I'm not entirely certain," I said, smiling. "They were a present."

"Who from?" one guy asked.

"Thor, actually. I got Sigurd first as a guard dog, then Torburn was given to me later." This was huge news and I told them about the dogs' intelligence, sweet nature, and a few funny stories. That burned off a good ten minutes. This disclosure had been cleared by Promotion; I'd been worried that I'd be boring in this Q&A and wanted to give anybody who showed up something for their trouble.

A young teenaged girl stood up next. "You're a strong woman--"

"You think so?" I asked. "I don't think of myself as strong, personally."

She looked confused. "What do you mean? How do you see yourself?"

"Well, not strong. Physically, I get run around the obstacle course by a guy who can run almost 50 miles an hour and benches 1200 pounds. I'm not even the strongest female Avenger; Widow beats me in some key metrics. I work with Tony Stark, so I'm never the smartest person in the room. I work with an extraordinary collection of individuals, including a god, so it's easy to define what I'm not. It's easy for people to say that they're a strong woman or their wife or mom is. I think all of us can be strong when things are mostly going our way, when we're feeling motivated and capable to tackle the problem at work, when a kid comes home with some bad grades, when there's a rough patch in the marriage. It's when things get tough and your feet are knocked out from under you that you see what you're made of. And honestly, when that happens, I don't find myself all that impressive."

"Why is that?" somebody else asked.

"Well, when my last family member died, I had a really hard time. Some days, every little thing was a huge achievement. Get out of bed, check. Shower, check. Extra credit for makeup or to do my hair. Drive to work, check. Manage to do enough to keep my position, check. Get home without wrecking the car, check. That passed, I just had to keep checking things off the list, but I didn't just power through the stages of grieving and get on with life. I ended up in the middle of nowhere when I lost my job and couldn't find another one in my field and I had to find something else to do. I would probably still be there if I hadn't been given an opportunity to do the right thing. I doubt myself and my abilities a lot. So each day, I try to do any job the best I can. Try harder, try to be a better person. Sometimes the fails are epic; some of the fights I've had with Tony were really bad and it's embarrassing to look back on. So the next day I have to try harder and try to see his point of view, try to be more empathetic. I guess I think that what I've got is perseverance. And endurance." I nod to myself. "Especially endurance. It all comes from stubbornness, anyway." There's silence. I can tell that this is not what they were expecting to hear, but I find that it's easier to tell hard things from behind a mask.

"So, what?" asked one confused boy. "I thought all heroes had to be super."

"Maybe it's that it's not an overwhelming ability that can make somebody a hero. Maybe it's a collection of traits, a focused dedication to one skill, or just an ability to work. I don't know," I said, spreading my hands. "I was just asked a question."

Shoot. I just shut down the room, and I still have twenty minutes left. This is going to be uncomfortable if we just sit here. I should maybe get some help from Promotions. In fact, I'm pretty sure there will be some mandatory training after this. One of them is hanging around behind me, to the side, out of my line of vision.

"Are you an alien?" one little girl wanted to know, and I burst out laughing. "Thor's an alien," she said, defending herself.

"That is true," I acknowledge, "but I'm not, I'm human."

"Just your dogs are aliens, then," another kid suggested, and I nodded. That lightened things up considerably, and the remaining time ticked away. Then I signed autographs and posed for pictures, and then, it was over.

My handler took me back to the little group of rooms we had for us women to change costumes--the guys' costumes had been so bulky that they only had one. Each of the ladies had three, one for each event. I had the hour where the second set of individual panels was conducted, then it was back into the fray with the final meet and greet. They let me go to the bathroom and try to rehydrate first, then I had to change out of the second dress. They pinned a towel around my shoulders and I cleaned my face with toner before the makeup artist and hair stylist descended.

"Emma," Natasha said, smirking, coming into the room and waving her phone at me, "You've been keeping secrets." Bruce, who had followed her in, took a look at me in my underwear and towel and turned away.

"I don't think so," I said after a moments' reflection.

She chortled and showed me the screen. It was a picture of Steve kissing me, taken from a distance; my face wasn't visible in the photo at all. Just my hair. There was a headline, just to make things super fantastic. "Has Captain America Found His Lady Liberty?"

There's more," Bruce said, and Natasha took his phone to look. "Oooh," she said appreciatively before showing me. This one showed the moment just before we kissed. It was absolutely Captain America. That was captioned, "Sorry, Ladies--Cap Has Lost his Freedom."

"Son of a...gun," I said, then had to close my eyes (mercifully) so that shadow could be applied. "It is not what it looks like," I assured them.

"And what happened?" she said tauntingly.

"A pack of fans was pursuing him," I said. "One of them wanted him to sign a body part."

Bruce nodded. "That would do it," he said. "He's shy like that. But I don't get the PDA. That's very un-Steve-like."

"It just happened," I said, shaking my head.

"Stop moving," said the makeup artist firmly.

Natasha started laughing hard. "So busted," she managed. Another link, another couple of photos: one had caught me holding his glove as he put his hand into it; there had been a burr of metal that I'd removed. The camera angle made it ambiguous as to whether he was looking at the glove or at me. And one where we were standing close together just before going out on stage; he had his hand on the back of my neck and was looking down.

I tossed her the phone. "They managed to crop out Scott, who was making a joke about the glove not fitting, and Tony and Vision from the second one."

"You're no fun," she said. "Maybe you should go out. Just think of the press releases! You'd be the Avengers' cutest couple. It would be a wet dream for Promotions." I threw the towel at her.

"Aren't you supposed to be getting ready?" I asked, and she sighed.

"Last time," she said, and I nodded.

"Stop moving," the hairstylist said.

I couldn't help fretting a little as I got into the last dress; tight bodice, floaty skirt, dark blue at the hem and up the skirt slit that was open to my hip, hand decorations, and a different metal lace collar. My hair was down, and instead of a mask, I had a fine veil across my face, under my eyes. I wore sandals and there were dainty sort-of greaves on my shins. Would it make things weird? I didn't want things to be weird. I don't really like change. And blue. My costume had blue, Steve's was blue, it would look deliberate. I needed to keep my distance from him. 

One of our handlers told me I had to get moving, and I saw Natasha just ahead of me. She was wearing a draped, form-fitting black sequined gown with a red metal hourglass at her waist, looking sensational. Wanda was also being turfed out; she wore a vintage-reminiscent dress in scarlet, with darker red gloves that were heavily embroidered with gold. I shook my head. Once you got a color scheme from Promotions, you were stuck with it. Natasha was assigned black with red accents due to her namesake spider, Wanda had red because of her identity as the Scarlet Witch, and I was stuck with blue because of the cape Thor had given me.

**************

We were back home in time for dinner. The final event had gone well; the fans seemed more enthusiastic to meet me, which I attributed to the general air of excitement and carryover from the rest of the team. Toward the end, I'd been unexpectedly free, and stepped away when I felt someone a little too close behind me. I raised my eyebrows.

"I'm not sure what I should call you," I said. "Agent? Director?"

The man smiled. "Phil will do. It was a pleasure meeting you." He handed me a small flash drive. "Tell them that I'll be in touch." I had to resist the urge to rub my eyes. Cap and Tony in particular would be agitated that they'd missed him. Again. They'd expected him to show up to Cap's panel, but they hadn't seen him. And nobody was looking over here.

"Wait a sec," I said, as he prepared to melt away again. I'd stashed something in my dress's pocket in case I saw him again. He took it and fanned out a set of vintage trading cards that I'd paid the earth for at a collectables stand yesterday. I'd even gotten Steve to sign them. "Wow," he finally said, tucking them into his suit coat pocket. "Thank you." His eyes were warm. Then he disappeared as fans approached.

As predicted, the others were pissed that Phil had escaped them again, and I think there was some anger and hurt feelings that he'd approached me rather than someone who had known him. I didn't think it was that hard to figure out; there would have been a scene with one of those who had known him. The drive contained some information on the mysterious Smith, which was more than we had.

Tony's phone chimed an alert as we sat down to eat. He started to read, then started to laugh. "Listen to this," he said, and began reading a blog pot. "'This year's San Diego ComicCon was the usual smashing success, showcasing the best of geek culture from the fringes to the mainstream. But the undisputed star attraction was the appearance of the Avengers, giving fans unprecedented access. Only Black Panther (busy running his country) and Hulk (well respected but perhaps not entirely safe in non-combat settings) were absent from the team's appearance. Earth's mightiest heroes caused a sensation when they appeared onstage in Hall H in fantasy-inflected versions of their everyday costumes that are sure to inspire more than a few fantasies among their legions of fans.' Blah blah, gush, gush.... " He poked me.

"You'll like this. 'Tony Stark's individual appearance was the greatest draw, and the billionaire/playboy/philanthropist did not disappoint, his trademark sharp wit and snark making for the most entertaining panel. The appearance that you'll be kicking yourself for missing, though, belonged to a newer member. The Paladin's panel drew only about eighty people, including a few journalists like me, but felt intimate as she answered every question thoughtfully and with sometimes disconcerting candor.' There's a link--'she spoke to every fan who asked her something or had a comment or compliment, and the ones I talked to afterward felt that she really saw them as individuals and appreciated the lack of stock answers or glossy diverting responses. While frustratingly vague about her powers (what the bad guys don't know about her they can't use against her, as she pointed out logically) or her past ('it's not much of a secret identity if I tell you, is it?'), she brought the session to a halt with her admission that she doesn't really see herself as super, just persistent. By relating struggles she has had, she seems the most approachable than the other members of her team, someone we can relate to, a friend you could legitimately hit Starbucks with. Among these Olympian gods, she seems as warm and welcoming as Hestia, providing anecdotes about her dogs (gifts from Asgard, as it turns out) and funny stories about her training with Captain America and the Winter Soldier. And she seemed to care about her fans, saying she hoped that everybody washed their hands a lot to prevent any con crud from spoiling memories of the convention. She was seen helping her neighbors in the lineup for the meet and greet: she fixed a problem with Colonel Rhodes' exoskeleton and she gave Thor some of her Sharpies when he ran out under the onslaught of his fans, things that would normally be handled by others were addressed efficiently and gracefully. It's odd to feel a connection to someone whose face is never revealed, but you can't help it. When questioned about her determination to keep her real identity obscured for as long as possible, she said, "When my team members go out, they are almost always recognized and approached. While it's always nice to know you've touched people's lives, honestly, I like the freedom of going shopping without somebody reporting my dress size online. I appreciate being able to buy far too many Oreos and my tampons without judgment or comment."'

"'The male Avengers showed up as fabled knights in shining armor, but it was the ladies who really wowed in beautiful dresses and accessories that must have been made by Paladin, looking more formidable than their male counterparts who looked a little isolated behind their suits.' Blah, blah, Joss Whedon slayed, blah blah... 'New member, the weapon known as the Winter Soldier, caused fans to flutter with his handsome face and fine physique'...yeah, whatever...

"'Paladin, appearing composed as we finally got a peek at her face, experienced a wave of popularity with her glamorous looks, fending off a tsunami of propositions in a straightforward manner. This attention might have also be prompted by speculation that the mysterious Avenger might be enjoying a secret romance with the man she described as "having more integrity than anyone [she's] ever met." Cap was caught kissing an anonymous woman whose distinguishing feature is a mane of bright silver hair earlier at the con.'" I frowned and poked at my mashed potatoes.

"'It must be noted that Paladin's hair is also long and while colored blue at the con to match her eyes and costumes, is sparkling white at the roots. While fans sigh at the thought of an epic romance, it might have been a simple fan diversion, as Cap grabbed the mystery woman just before a pack of fangirls hunted him down.' It doesn't address the length of the kiss--there's a video link--'but if a kiss is good enough, there's no point in ending it prematurely. Cap did hustle off as soon as the coast was clear.'" I was mortified. Tony looked at the video, smirked, and shot a pitying glance at Steve, who was scarlet. "You need some help, old man," Tony said to him. "It won't kill you to sign a few breasts. They're not contagious."

This prompted a debate about how to handle the more aggressive autograph seekers. It was faintly insulting for everybody to assume that Steve wouldn't be interested in me, but it was better that they weren't teasing me about it. I'd been given the job of rounding up stragglers after the appearance was over; Peter and Scott left immediately for New York, and I'd had to find Steve after he disappeared.

I'd looked around for heat signatures and found it in a custodian's supply closet. I'd opened the door and leaned in to see Steve with a tall, beautiful blonde woman plastered against him.

"Whoops," I said. "Sorry."

"Ah," Steve said, flustered. "This is Sharon; she's with the CIA." I nodded to her.

"We're leaving in five. Tony threatened to leave anybody who isn't prompt," I relayed the message, and closed the door behind me.

It felt weird. I knew that the kiss had been an impulsive action to keep fans at bay.

Then the talk turned to the intelligence provided by Phil and Sharon, and Nick, who had stopped by the table, experienced a frosty reception from those he'd kept in the dark. He appeared unfazed, though, and handed out some assignments to follow up on the information. The heads of Promotion descended on us, thanking us for our cooperation and enthusing about our showing. I was glad to escape and go home with my dogs.


	30. Get a life!

The next morning, I found myself called into Promotions, sure I was going to get a scolding for my performance in my individual appearance. When I saw Natasha and Wanda there, I wasn't sure. And I could hear somebody talking in the next office.

"Am I in trouble?" I asked bluntly, and Marketing blinked owlishly at me.

"No, why?"

I relaxed. "I thought because of that individual appearance..." I explained.

She flashed me a smile. "Oh, no. You did well. That sort of candor is not what we'd have advised you to do, but it really worked. This meeting today is related to Comic Con, so your performances are responsible for getting you some really interesting offers, which I advise you to do. It will help people have a favorable opinion of you the next time there's a public relations disaster."

"I don't know what you were thinking," PR said loudly from the next office, clearly audible through the wall. "Whatever you do, it cannot look like you're using and tossing Paladin." I flinched. Everybody looked at me. "She is solid gold after the convention; people view her more favorably than anybody on the team right now, including you. I don't care what you were thinking, kissing her in public. If you weren't going to go public on a relationship, you should have kept your lips off her. And now that you tell me there's nothing going on...well, the internet's on fire with speculation. You need to be sure you're not seen in public with another woman for awhile; then if anybody still cares, we can say it just didn't work out, no hard feelings exist." There's an irritated murmur in response.

"Um...We were just contacted this morning with an offer from the Metropolitan Museum in New York. They're mounting a major exhibition of historic clothing and jewelry, mostly from their own collections but also borrowing some important pieces from private collections and other institutions. They would like you to put a face on the exhibition for the public; you'd be photographed in some of the dresses and jewelry--" Marketing plowed on.

"You need to learn how to manage your fans better!" the man next door said sharply. "The fans may be cruder and more demanding than what you'd prefer, but they aren't going away. It won't kill you to sign the top of some girl's breast, you're not going to be groping her. And kissing random women doesn't help your image--"

Wanda glanced at me and held up her hand. "Sounds fun. I'm in." Natasha and I also voted in favor. Anything to get out.

"And one more. The GIA is also doing...something... they want you to model important pieces of jewelry for some publication." We agreed to that one too, and scuttled out before we heard any more.

By mutual agreement, we walked in silence for a bit. "Geeze. They need thicker soundproofing in those offices," I said, provoking Wanda into giggles of nervousness, which broke the ice.

"I wonder what we just agreed to do," Natasha said.

"I have no idea," I confessed. "Clothes and jewelry, I think. You don't suppose this was a ploy by Promotions to make us more docile, do you?" Everybody laughed at that, and the topic was abandoned.

I said goodbye to the others at the turnoff for the obstacle course and gym. Since I knew Steve was otherwise occupied, I ran it myself. And discovered that he'd had a whole new obstacle put in while we were in San Diego. It was a mud pit, for some reason. Probably because of the landslide from the Yucatan mission. It must have been fifty yards long and so deep it came past my knees. I lost my footwear in it and was pooped when I got to the other side. It was hard to extract myself from. When I got out, I quit the course, showered, and went to medical. It had done a number on my knees, which weren't as young as they'd been. After I spent a couple hours on and off with ice packs, I made a sign and stuck it in front of the pit. "Mud Trap! Save yourself!" it read, and just as I finished tapping the post into the ground, Tony and Bruce burst out of the trees on the path, and stopped, looking from me and the sign to the pit of doom.

"So, that looks new," Bruce observed.

"How deep is it?" Tony wanted to know. I indicated a spot over my knees. "I'd be flying over that, anyway," he said. I restrained the urge to flip him off.

"I think I'd let the Other Guy deal with that," Bruce decided, and they ran around it. I shook my head and went to work. Afterward, I went up to the rec room for some...I was going to go with Guinness, but I wasn't too fond of thick brown liquids for some reason, so I thought that if Natasha was around, I'd have her mix me up a martini. When I got upstairs, (I had to take the elevator today) Natasha (yay!), Bruce, Thor, Sif, and Sam were listening at the door. Sam gestured for silence, and I joined the group. Tony seemed to be having a conversation with Steve.

"Look, I'm not trying to tell you how to live your life, but I've got to agree with PR on this one. If you don't want to date her, just let it die down. The fankids are swooning over the thought of the Avengers' power couple. But frankly, she's a better match for you than Sharon Carter."

"Oh?" Steve's voice was glacial.

"Seriously, you might want to rethink going out with Peggy's, what? Great-niece? Great-great niece? It looks like Sharon's picking up her auntie's leftovers and you're taking whatever you can get. There's having a CIA contact, and contacting the CIA, if you know what I mean." Steve didn't bother to answer that. Verbally, anyway. I left when I heard the first punch being thrown.

Next day, I didn't say anything to Steve about his bruises, but I had to go at a slower speed to save my knees; when Steve nagged me about my pace, I handed him the doctor's note saying I had to take it easy and excusing me from the mud. It exacerbated his still-pissy mood. He yelled at me for the sign I'd put up, and I yelled back about the length and depth of the field. We finished the run in silence, and fortunately in the gym it was upper-body day, which was also done in silence. Bucky excused me from poleaxe practice since I couldn't bend my knees very deeply, fan practice since I couldn't move very swiftly, and let me concentrate on the urumi since that was mostly upper-body work. Materials had made me a man-shaped target out of a plastic that was highly resistant to the blades of the urumi, so I got to whip my bad mood out at that. 

"So I guess you heard last night," he said.

"It's why I shouldn't eavesdrop," I said, with an especially wicked crack of the metal blades.

"Steve was chewed out earlier, I guess."

I let the sword wrap around my leg to still it, then coiled it up. "Yes, in the PR office. Natasha and Wanda and I were there talking to Marketing. The walls aren't thick enough." My cheeks flushed. "This is way out of control," I said to Steve's best friend. "So he kissed me, and it was seen. Big deal. Everybody need to just take a deep breath and relax. It will blow over when there's nothing else out there about it. And frankly, it's nobody's damned business, anyway. Both of us are adults."

"But it kind of is," Bucky said, surprising me. "He's the team leader, you provide the heart of the team. If there's a problem between the two of you, it affects everybody." I rolled up the sword tighter in a temper.

"There's a problem because people are making one," I stressed. "There's no problem between Steve and me."

"We're a small group. We don't get out much, so yeah, we're probably overly interested in each others' goings on. And personally, I'd like to see Steve have a girlfriend; before the girls never looked twice at him and now they just see somebody famous. At least you know the real Steve. You could do a lot worse."

"This is just great," I snapped. "Steve's getting all sorts of grief because he made a dumb call and everybody's telling him not to dump me publicly because my q rating is momentarily high. You can't dump what isn't even a thing," I said, grinding my teeth. "And I'm not some innocent who has to be protected from a predator by the big strong men. And now there's you, saying I should settle, implying that it's the best outcome from a bad situation if I just bite the bullet, like we're both charity cases. Everybody just needs to butt the hell out."

'I didn't mean it like that," he started, and I shook my head.

"Look, my vanity's taken a beating from the weeping and wailing over this horrible, nightmare scenario. I don't honestly think I'm so awful, and it pisses me off to be treated like problem that has to be fixed, like I'm some sort of bomb that made a huge mess. It's going to fade away if people just let it go."

I turned and headed for my workshop. And when it was time to leave, I was glad that I lived off-campus. When I got home, though, I was restless and kind of resentful, truth be told. So after wandering around the house, I got in the car and took a little trip to the biggest sporting goods store I could find. A couple of hours later, I returned home. Wrestling the big box out of the SUV and up the stairs to the porch was the hard part; from there, I just used the entryway rug to scoot the box over to the basement stairs and slid it down. The dogs followed it down as I got the cordless drill with the screwdriver tip and a stepladder. I bolted the hanger into one of the big, solid beams on the ceiling and stripped the box off the heavy bag. Huh. I looked at the distance from the beam to where the bag was on the floor and recalculated. In the end, I brought down a chair and several of my old and thickest textbooks, propping the bag on this assembly and securing the ring to the hanger. Then I eased the chair away and the bag swung free, just waiting for me to hit it. I smiled and took everything up, then came back downstairs for the box, taking it out to the recycling bin in the garage.

I changed into shorts and a t-shirt and bounced downstairs to try the punching bag when I had to divert to the door as the doorbell chimed. It was Steve. I opened the door and stood aside.

"I'm not interrupting anything, am I?" he asked a touch nervously.

"No, I was just going to try out my new punching bag," I said, hoping that he wasn't going to give me any grief about it.

He laughed. "Can I see?" I led him downstairs. Seeing how this was Steve, I didn't fuss as he inspected the hanger, explaining how I'd bought longer, better quality wood screws. His lips quirked up as I explained how I'd gotten the bag hung, but he didn't say anything.

"Do you know how to start?" he asked neutrally. I held up my cell phone, which had a YouTube tutorial cued up. "I could show you," he offered, extending an olive branch. I took it, and he helped me put on the handwraps and the gloves and showed me how to punch. I took it easy, not wanting to overdo on something new.

"Feel better?" he asked, crossing his arms.

"I do," I confirmed. "It's very satisfying." He snorted.

"I often feel that way."

"If you'd like to take a break from the gym sometimes, you could come here," I offered. "One of the dogs can let you in." He looked at me through his ridiculous eyelashes. "I am not going to assault your virtue," I said, hanging on to patience. "It's just an offer to punch something on your own."

He relaxed and smiled sheepishly. "I'm a little skittish," he said.

"I know," I mumbled, then pulled back the Velcro on one of the boxing gloves with my teeth. He shook his head and peeled back the closure on the other.

"It's been pretty bad the past few days," he said. "I'm sorry for putting you through it. And the mud obstacle. Somehow the measurements were greatly exaggerated."

"I don't understand why we have to have a mud obstacle at all," I said, looking around for a place to put the gloves.

"It was only supposed to be a foot deep, to get everybody accustomed to uncertain footing."

"Good, because if it was a rescue scenario, we'd be looking at a much bigger problem." He started to laugh, and all of a sudden it felt ok. I leaned against his arm, and after a moment he put it around me.

"Maybe we should have a joint strategy if anybody says anything else," he said and I thought it over before agreeing. Ultimately, we decided, we would just tell anybody who said anything that it we were done talking about it.

"So how will the dogs let me in if you're not here? I'm kind of fuzzy about that," he said, dropping his arm, so I stepped away.

"The dogs have a key on their collar, so the locks buzz open when they get close. And the key has to be at the right height, so somebody can't just take it off their collars. I don't really know details, it was something Tony came up with," I said, and we headed upstairs.

It took a couple of days, but after Steve and I just kept saying that we weren't going to discuss it anymore, even Tony stopped twitting us. A good thing, too, since the thing with the Met came up pretty fast. Asking us had been last minute, and it was easy enough for Legal to handle the contracts; our fee went to a fund to help with admissions and everybody involved signed a non-disclosure agreement to protect my identity. Additionally, the photos would be photoshopped if necessary to obscure my face other than my eyes. We would be bringing hair and makeup stylists with us; they were already in discussions with the museum about the styling. They sent our measurements so they could find clothing that fit; when that was finalized, the museum sent patterns for the correct undergarments for each dress so that it would look as the designers had intended. It turned out that it was an exhibition for the Costume Institute specifically, but the photos would be shot throughout the museum.

Finally, the time came and we took the quinjet to New York with Tony, who was going to drop in on a school thing Peter had. We went into the museum after hours and were hustled immediately to a staging area. It was harder work than I thought, even though most of the time was spent being styled with historical accuracy. We were each assigned a photographer; I got along great with mine. He was funny but demanding, and although it turned out to be interesting, I was glad to board the quinjet several hours later and go home.

Several days later, we were all hanging out in the rec room when Marketing came up and handed each of us women a thick interoffice envelope. In that was a large envelope containing the photographs from the shoot; we each had our own set, and they were the best that each photographer shot. We made the guys clear off one of the sofas so we could sit together and compare. The boys got tired of listening to us laugh and 'ooh' over the photographs, and Tony plucked some out of my hand. Bruce looked over Natasha's shoulder and Vision sat on the arm of the sofa and looked at Wanda's, but ultimately they were all passed around. They'd done two scenes with all three of us in Worth ball gowns; Wanda and I had worn black and white ones while Natasha wore an all-black gown. Then we were put into Charles James gowns, each in different colors. For individual shots, Wanda had been put into an Edwardian gown and an Empire masterpiece. Natasha had worn a cream and pink robe a l'Anglaise and a slinky 30's satin bias cut slip dress. I'd been put into a magnificent Callot Soeurs flapper dress and a vivid purple tea dress. I'd been shot in the temple of Dendur in the flapper dress and walking in the Arms and Armor gallery in the tea dress.

"This is a tea dress?" Bucky said, studying it. "It looks like a nightgown and robe."

"Not with the train," I pointed out. "It was surprisingly comfortable, though."

"They gave you that one out of pity," Wanda said slyly, smiling broadly.

"I thought we weren't going to discuss that," I said primly.

Natasha took some glee in relating how I'd passed out after too long in the corset for the Worth dress. I couldn't breathe enough. The waist on that thing had been itty, and I'd been cinched in as tightly as they could make it. I swatted her good-naturedly, and for the first time since Comic Con, things really felt back to normal.


	31. The mission

A few days later we had a meeting to discuss the reliability of intelligence we'd collected and that was unofficially provided to us by the CIA and SHIELD (apparently back in business, who knew?) regarding Smith and the baddies who'd escaped us on the Yucatan mission. As we sifted data and debated, Marketing tapped on the door and came in. As the words dried up, she smiled at Natasha, Wanda, and me and gushed a bit about the shoot for the Costume Institute and reminded us that we were going down to California next week to do the shoot for the Gemological Institute of America.

"Is this the other thing we agreed to do?" Wanda asked in confusion as Natasha and I looked at each other, puzzled.

"Yes, I wanted to fill in the details a little more," Marketing said cheerfully, avoiding looking at Steve. "And there's also another inquiry that I wanted to present to you all. Vanity Fair contacted me. They're doing a story on the Avengers, with or without your input."

"So they want us to cooperate," Tony guessed, and Marketing nodded.

"It would be beneficial to let them have your side of the story, whatever their angle is," she said. "If you agree, they will also want photos, so please factor this into your deliberations."

So we deliberated. Tony is all about control, so he was in favor of cooperating, and I knew he'd get the lawyers on the contract immediately. Bucky, Wanda and Vision were not all that excited about the prospect, and the rest of us were on the fence. I think some of the guys were a little intrigued by the photo shoot that we women had done, and eventually we agreed to do it. It would have to be fit in around the op we were planning, though. Marketing nodded and Tony stepped outside with her to call the lawyers. 

The rest of us called a break and went to the caf for snacks. I was feeling much more cheerful as we returned to divide the tasks for the op. Natasha left on a fact-finding mission and got back just in time for the GIA assignment, again we donated the fee they'd proposed back to the institution, this time for educational purposes.

Once we got down there, we were given simple black dresses to wear, and Costuming had come up with one of the polymer masks that exposed my eyes, so I had to sit for makeup as well as hair. They put us against a black backdrop and the first thing was parures; we wore the tiara, necklace, and earrings from each set. Wanda was given a glorious pink topaz set, Natasha the Queen of Sheba set, and I had a peridot set, thrilled to get away from blue sapphires. Then there were necklaces; Natasha had an unusual Lalique piece, Wanda wore amethysts and turquoise from Cartier, and I was assigned a diamond, sapphire, and pearl necklace from Van Cleef and Arpels. And that was that; it had made me nervous to wear such valuable things. But they were so very beautiful and it had been fun to wear a tiara, if I'm honest. I kept that to myself, though, didn't want any teasing about thinking that I'm royalty. The pictures turned out fantastic; there were some candids as well as the composed shots. The photographs from the Met shoot appeared on promotional materials for the exhibition and were generating some good buzz. Social media was largely approving.

The op took place in early October near Vienna. This op went a lot more smoothly than the one in Yucatan. No hurricanes, for one thing. The police weren't as nice to work with, though, and we had a jurisdictional wrangle over who got to keep Ballista. We had time to copy the drives of several computers before they arrived, so we had a lot of data to work with. Nobody was seriously hurt, on either side, so we were in a celebratory mood when we walked up the ramp of the quinjet.

We'd alerted Nick about our success right when we took care of the computers, so it was a surprise to find we had a message waiting. Vanity Fair hoped that we could divert to France before we left Europe so that we could do the photos in a different setting. We agreed; we were in good moods from our success and also kind of wanted to get it over with. We had orders, expressly stated by PR and reinforced by Nick, since it was in the contract, that we were to behave ourselves and do everything that the photographer wanted. We flew to Paris, spent the night at the Georges Cinq, and were picked up bright and early. They drove us out to Versailles.

Versailles, for real. And it wasn't open to the public. Holy cow!! I'd never been, and now I was going to be able to see it--or at least some of it--in an extraordinary way.

They split the three of us women off and took us to a side room where we were given our costumes and sat for hair and makeup. My hair was curled and put up in a loose, messy style that looked vaguely historic, and because I was wearing what was becoming my usual mask with the eyes showing, the artist really went to town on them; aggressively shimmery shadow, some tiny crystals at the ends of the lash line over the false eyelashes and eyeliner. I had the violet contacts I'd worn on the mission, and the makeup artist cooed over the shade. Our outfits were simple for this shoot and had no jewelry, which made it easier. On both of the other shoots, we'd had two security men each to make sure nothing happened to the treasures we were wearing. I was not so thrilled by the costume--a fluffy skirt that looked like a petticoat for the costumes we'd posed in and another damned corset. But mercifully, there was no tight lacing here and I relaxed. It had been embarrassing enough to pass out just in front of a few people; I really didn't want to do it in front of the entire team.

Tony had had the lawyers draw up the strictest contracts that were humanly possible; the photographer had a reputation for being suitably cutting edge and was known to be ambitious. Any breach of the contract would probably keep him insolvent for life and also maybe obligate him to donate several organs, including both testicles, a few inches of penis, a kidney or two, and possibly both corneas. I was a little nervous, because if Tony was uneasy, the rest of us should be squirming.

First one of the women out of the styling, I was led to the Hall of Mirrors, where most of the boys were. We were all in different shades of white, interesting. People were arranging a huge pile of silk and velvet cushions, and we were introduced to the photographer. I didn't like him. He seemed even more egocentric than Tony on his worst days, and made one of his assistants remove the modesty panel that lay under the lacings of the corset and also cinch it up tighter. When he tried to fluff my boobs a little, I thought Bucky was going to punch him out. I retreated and the assistant took me over to a corner to try to get maximum volume. I heard the photographer muttering about prudish Americans and had to beat down the urge to flip him off. Then the rest of the party filed in, and there were more readjustments. Bucky stood just in the photographer's peripheral vision and loomed as he had the other women similarly adjusted. The men were all in tight breeches like you see in historic paintings and had a variety of shirts and/or waistcoats, all en deshabille; cravats undone, shirts unbuttoned, everything cut for maximum effect. They were a great looking group.

Once everybody had been scrutinized, the photographer began arranging us to lounge on the pillows, making us look fairly decadent. He hated my mask, but once he was reminded of the penalties, stopped badgering me to take it off. Finally, he had us arranged to his liking; Tony stood in one corner, and the rest of us sort of descended in height to the opposite corner of the cushion, where Natasha lounged. After the first set of photographs, he tried a second grouping, then we were taken out to le Grand Trianon for shots of one or two of us at a time. It was a warm fall, and a few flowers still clung to their stems. Thor was photographed in the peristyle, Bucky, Sam, Hawkeye, Jim, Tony and Natasha inside, and Wanda, Vision, Steve, Scott, and me outside in the gardens. Tony and Bucky were shot together in the family room, Sam in the round room, Jim in the cool room, Hawkeye in the hall, looking like he was sizing up the gallery as a potential archery range, Natasha in the soft light in front of windows with beautiful draperies in the Emperor's bedroom, very seductive. Scott clowned around in front of the buffet d'eau, Wanda wandered in the garden room, and Vision looked engagingly alien pacing the exterior of the building. The photographer wanted to shoot Steve and me together in response to the gossip about us. We weren't really wild about it, explaining that we weren't together, but he didn't care, and reminded us pointedly about the contract. Everybody on the team was watching, as we all had watched the others' photographs, and Tony came over as we were talking and said that if we hated it, not to do it, we had lawyers-- It was the last thing that did it. It would be a big deal for us to be fighting a breach of contract suit, especially since we were the ones who had insisted on the most stringent terms.

"No, we can do this," I said, moving my head to stretch the muscles in my neck and shoulders. Steve smiled, and we let the photographer position us on the grass; he wanted to shoot us over low shrubs and the remains of the flowers with us in front of a pool of water. After a stern warning from Tony about not showing my face, our teammates stood back and watched as the photographer positioned us so that my back wasn't square to the photographer's lens; I was slightly at an angle; my jaw would be exposed, but nobody thought that would be a problem. The photographer and his assistants did a check for the lighting, then we were up. I took a deep breath, let it out when the corset wouldn't let me finish, and reluctantly took off my mask. I winked at Steve, making him smile, and his hand found the small of my back as he tipped my chin up.

Ummm. It was an excellent, dreamy kiss. At some point I dropped my mask and put my hand up to where his neck met his shoulder, his skin warm under my fingers. His hand moved to my hip, the other one sliding down my neck to my shoulder. When the kiss ended, I opened my eyes languidly, caught in the fathomless blue of his eyes. He took my hand, the back of my hand in his palm, his thumb caressing my palm, then brought it to his lips and kissed it. "Careful," I murmured, the filter between speech center, judgment, and mouth completely disengaged. "I'll fall in love with you." His eyes were intense and he drew me to him as he bent his head to breathe in my ear, "Maybe I want you to."

The photographer shouted that he had the shots, and Steve released me to pick up my mask, which I put back on quickly before turning around. Tony was reviewing the photos to make sure my identity wasn't compromised. I was grateful for the mask hiding my face.


	32. Take a leap of faith

The dressers left after they unlaced the corsets so that we could get back into our street clothes. I rubbed my ribs. Long-term corset wearing is something you have to do consistently, I suspected, if you don't want to ache. Scarcely had the door closed when Natasha and Wanda pounced.

"That was so romantic," Wanda said, fanning herself with her hand. "You need to sleep with him."

Natasha smirked at me. "He wasn't that good when I kissed him," she said provokingly.

I sighed in relief as I took the mask off. "Does anybody know how to get these crystal things off?" I asked, then pried the first one off my lash line. "All this crap on my eyes, my eyelids are exhausted with the strain of lifting the weight."

"When did you kiss Steve?" Wanda asked, since I wasn't going to.

"Well, we were on the run from HYDRA," she admitted, tossing her head. "Public displays of affection make people nervous. I thought he had promise, but he needed experience."

"OK, well, perhaps it wasn't technically the best kiss in the history of the world, if you're going to grade him, with metrics and everything, but I don't know if I could handle him getting any better. He is a super soldier," I fired back, and the girls guffawed.

On the way back to the quinjet, I noticed Steve's ears were still red, so he must have gotten his share of the teasing from the guys. Hawkeye put the jet on autopilot, then we started combing through the data we'd recovered in Vienna. About two hours in, Sam suddenly spoke up. "I think we've done something stupid."

Everybody looked up from their pads. "What do you mean?" Steve asked.

"By default, we've been thinking Smith is a man."

"Crap," I said, sitting up.

"Some of the references we've intercepted would make a lot more sense if the boss was a woman," Tony said tensely, and hit the button to bring down the three big see-through screens that jet was equipped with. We started pulling data up, flicking data from our pads to the screens, organizing and reorganizing, talking things through. We stopped in New York to refuel and get a bite to eat in the small airfield's restaurant--the rations we had on board had no expiration date and was to be avoided if possible--but by the time we landed at the compound we had some likely candidates for "Smith" to be further investigated. Nick wanted time to play with the intelligence, so we all hung out in the rec room for awhile, got a late dinner, then I headed for home through a light rain. Sigurd and Torburn were glad to see me, and after some barking and up-tempo tail wagging and hugs, they sacked out in the living room on the sofa. It was chillier here than in France, so I built a small fire and looked through the mail until I heard someone outside. 

I got up, tossing the throw aside. I checked the door--one person, male, 6'2", broad shoulders, shifting nervously. I smiled and opened the door to Steve. I took his leather jacket and shook off the raindrops, then went to the half bath under the stairs and brought him a towel for his hair. "Thanks," he said, rubbing his head briskly. "I didn't realize it was raining this hard when I left." I took the towel from him when he held it out, and leaned against the newel post of the stair railing, looking at him.

"Um, I wanted to talk to you about what happened earlier," he said, stuffing his hands in his pockets to still them. His hair stood up all over the place. It was adorable. Geeze.

"Would you like to come in?" I offered, waving toward the living room. He nodded, smiling tensely, and the dogs looked at him, yawned, and wagged their tails on the way out of the room, heading upstairs. We sat down on the sofa, which seemed to ratchet up his tension. I bet if I flicked him with my fingernail, he'd vibrate like a piano wire.

"Ok," I said, curling up on the chaise part, watching him in the corner of the sofa. He was sitting upright, which believe me, is not easy to do on that piece of furniture. It's built for slouching and relaxing.

"Did you mean it, when you said you could fall in love with me?" he blurted out. "I know it was an unusual situation, and I'm not holding you to it--"

"Yes," I said bluntly, throwing caution to the wind. He stuttered to a stop and looked at me. "Yes," I repeated, hoping I wasn't torching a friendship. "I like you a whole lot. You're wonderful, and I don't think it would be difficult to love you as more than a friend." Almost effortless, in fact. "If you wanted."

I bit my lip and looked for his reaction, kind of expecting him to give me a list of reasons, delivered very kindly, about why this would be a bad idea. He reached out and took my hand, pressing a kiss to the back, then turning it, stroking my palm once, and kissed that too. 

"I want," he said, and I stroked his cheek before scooting forward and kind of hesitantly leaned in for a kiss. It was long and so much more than friendly.

"So what's this I hear about you and Natasha making out?" I asked politely when we came up for air. His eyes got a little panicked and he assured me very earnestly that it had been a diversion. "And it was just a little kiss. I was very concerned about HYDRA catching up to us," he said anxiously.

"I'm sorry," I said, starting to laugh. "She was trying to needle me after the photo shoot." He let out a big breath and dropped his head back to the top of the sofa cushion, pressing his hand to his chest.

"You'll be the death of me," he said to the ceiling, but quickly refocused his attention.

He didn't stay the night; as I'd heard from the gossip, he didn't have a lot of experience with women, so I was fine with taking it at a pace he was comfortable with. "Although I would prefer to make it to bed in under a year," I told him. "A year is the target date." He smiled and stroked his hand down my back.

"That's generous," he said, pausing to brush his lips over mine. "I think I can beat that." I snuggled into him, just enjoying the physical contact, hearing the beating of his heart.

The next week, the Vanity Fair reporter came out and interviewed us, separately and as a group. I frustrated the reporter with my refusal to talk about my background or the status of my relationship with Captain America, but I tried hard to be candid in response to her other questions about what I thought about superheroes and whether we should register with the government. It was the issue that wouldn't die. I stated my reservations without coming out and saying I thought it was a crappy idea.

As Steve and I eased into our new relationship, the others noticed, of course, but nobody said much about it. Relationships were pretty much off limits; nobody had teased Natasha and Bruce or Wanda and Vision, either.

The article came out in the December issue of the magazine; we were sent advanced copies. When Marketing dropped a stack on the table, we all grabbed for a copy and opened to the article. It was titled "In the Halls of the Gods," which made me roll my eyes. That was just the one of us. The pictures were extraordinary, though. One of the photos from the Hall of Mirrors covered the first two pages, and we looked relaxed, and powerful, and just this side of decadent. I was a little worried that this would be a strike against our upright image. Well, upright except for Tony. A few photographs of us in the smaller photo shoots were used in the article, and we all received a packet of the photos that had been shot for each of us. "Although Paladin was usually engaged and passionate when talking about the Avengers and their goals, she became cool while refusing to discuss the status of her relationship with Captain America, her mask making it impossible to read her reaction. The Captain enjoyed no such advantage. Although he continued to be polite and stated that he had no comment about Paladin other than as a teammate, the mere mention of her code name seemed to brighten his demeanor and relax him. The reader can interpret that however they'd like," I read. It was the best we could have done. The final image in the article was one of us in the garden; the photographer might have been a class one ass, but he was very gifted. He caught us just as I dropped my mask, and you could see Steve's fingers playing with the corset lacings at my waist. We were framed perfectly by the gardens, with the pool and building as the background. It was spectacularly romantic. A larger copy of the photograph was in the packet I got, and I wanted immediately to frame that. The final photograph in the packet was one where he was whispering to me, and there was kind of an electricity to the image, an anticipation. We all passed our photos around so everybody could see.

"Guy was a jackass, but he was good," Sam said, shaking his head.

"He brought out something special in all of us," Scott agreed. 

"Don't supposed you'd like to tell the group what you were saying," Tony said brightly to Steve, who smiled.

"Don't tell me you're needing help with the ladies?" Steve said, grinning broadly, and Tony sputtered to the amusement of the table.

Overall, the article was fair and balanced, and highlighted the points that I thought were critical that we get across: that we worked hard to prepare for times when we had to act, that we cared about people, and that we tried our hardest to protect people when we tried to keep the baddies from harming them. Because the next time something went badly, the criticism would be fierce, and I wanted people to have something they could look at and think, 'well, I'm sure they did their best.' When the issue hit the stands, it was one of their highest selling issues and generated a lot of buzz.

Then we woke up one morning to find that Bruce was gone.


	33. Hunting for a hulk

Natasha was distraught. As near as anyone could tell, reviewing security footage from all over the property, he vanished while running the obstacle course in the wooded section. That was all. He went in, he did not come out. He did not leave by either my gate or any of the manned gates. He didn't trigger the pressure sensors on any section of the fence. Everybody, including security not on duty, geeks, even the people in the caf and in Promotions came to help us search the woods, meter by meter. Nothing. Hawkeye took me up in a helicopter and I scanned the entire property for his heat signature. Nothing.

It was literally as if he disappeared into thin air. Thor went back to Asgard and had Heimdall look for him. He was nowhere on the planet; Heimdall would have been able to see him if he were dead, but there was nothing. Dispirited, Thor reported to us that Heimdall would search the nine realms, but it would take some time. It was a lot of territory to cover.

We supported Natasha the best we could; she kept to herself as much as possible and did as much work as she could. Nick sent her off to get field intelligence about our top three candidates for a female Smith, which at least diverted her attention from wondering and worrying about Bruce.

A few weeks later, she was back with photographs and we were able to positively eliminate one of the candidates for the top job. Both of the other contenders were definitely baddies; the only question was which one was ours, although they would both bear watching.

Autumn was a pretty grim season this year.

One night I was woken up by Steve having a really terrible nightmare. He'd been plagued with them periodically since he was brought out of the ice. I persuaded him to talk about it; he described memories from the war that he had suppressed, culminating in his ditching the Valkyrie in the ice. Then he was defrosted and shortly thereafter, Nick got him involved in the Avengers Initiative and the Chitauri invasion. Then he helped bring down HYDRA and SHIELD, Sokovia, been an outlaw, and been redeemed. There was also Bucky, finding him, helping to free him, getting his best friend back. As I listened to him talking, I was sick; it sounded like a terrible case of PTSD, and nothing had been done to help him.

"I understand that a lot of WWII vets came back traumatized from their experiences." I said quietly. "They tried to mash a strange shaped peg into a round hole after they went home and a lot of them had a hard time with it, especially the guys who had especially hard experiences, like the troops at Bastogne or the ones who liberated concentration camps. Nobody knows the extent of the problem because psychology wasn't very advanced and there was a stigma anyway. Things are better now, though. They know how to help combat vets like you. What you've been through is enough for two lifetimes. You could see Constance if you wanted, or there are other options. Sam would know how to get you help through the VA. It's not a reflection on you as a man. The miracle is that you've been able to keep it together for so long." 

We talked about it some more, and ultimately he said he'd talk to Sam. I felt slightly better; Sam would be able to get him help. He'd worked for the VA.

It wasn't long before he was seeing somebody at the Seattle VA. I told him I would respect his privacy and not pry, but I was always willing to talk if he wanted. I also had to face the fact that I hadn't seen that he was struggling. Con had to tell me shape up; Steve was good at hiding his pain and troubles and I wasn't responsible. But I loved him; I felt that I should have seen.

Once again we had Thanksgiving at the Bartons' and Christmas at my place. Natasha was absent for both, and the loss of two of our members was tough. It was a dreary holiday season overall, but brighter for me because of Steve.

But as spring approached, he started having the nightmares more frequently, and finally, one beautiful spring morning in April, he told me he needed a break from our relationship.

"What?" I asked stupidly. "What does that mean?"

"It means that I can't do everything. I can't do the therapy, the Avengers, and be the man you deserve."

"I don't even know what to say to that. What I need is you. In any form. Any way I can have you."

He looked away. "What I feel for you is making it harder to deal with the PTSD." I stepped back in shock. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said it like that. But I worry that I will fail. I can't save myself and the public and be there for you. And I need the Avengers. I need to know that I'm out there, making a difference, doing something positive. "

I didn't know where to go with that or know how to get through to him without making his problems worse. He wouldn't listen to me. So I begged.

"So what, exactly, are you saying? Steve, I love you and would do anything for you. Let me help you. It won't be forever. Please." He wouldn't relent. "You're so frustrating!" I exploded. "It doesn't mean that you're any less a man for leaning on a woman for help."

"Yes, I am!" he snapped back. And the words hung between us.

"Would you have said that to Peggy?" I asked softly.

"No," he said tautly after a moment. "But she knew me before. When I was weak and all I had was determination. I'm not that guy anymore. I don't want to be. I like being strong."

"And you think I make you weak?" I said, biting off the words.

"I think the nightmares got worse after we got together," he snapped. "What I feel for you has brought up things I just want to forget."

"Then be your version of a man, Steve. Alone, too proud to ask for help getting through your troubles. Just be honest. You don't want a break, you just don't want to be vulnerable. I don't do breaks. I am committed to you. A relationship is there for the bad times as well as the good times. I'm not a cup of coffee that you can put down and walk away from and come back when you feel like it. You're either with me or you aren't." I spun on my heel and left. I didn't cry until I got home.

I stopped running the obstacle course with him or working out in the gym with him, doing it in the late afternoon instead. I started eating at odd times to avoid him in the caf. I rarely saw him unless it was at a meeting. Everybody knew we'd broken up, but not why, and nobody asked me questions. I couldn't have answered. It was like he'd physically ripped out my heart, it hurt so much. The later love comes, the harder it hits, and I felt like I'd been pummeled to within an inch of my life.

Even work, for the first time in my life, was dull and unengaging. I did what I needed to do, but there was no joy in any of it. And Thor asked a big favor; Torburn's mother had been seriously injured, and I was asked to allow Torburn to return to Asgard until she healed. She was expected to recover fully, but they thought her favorite son would help keep her spirits up. Of course he had to go.

Even the discovery that Ms Smith was a former HYDRA operative known as Madam Hydra; Captain America had run across her before, didn't cheer me up. She was currently known as Viper, and she seemed to be living up to her name. We put together a plan to go after her; she was setting up shop in an isolated area near Kazakhstan, so civilian contacts would be few.

And so I found myself on the quinjet, getting ready to storm a heavily defended position. Yay. What was not to like? Natasha was back, and although she wasn't recovered from the loss of Bruce entirely, she was doing a lot better. I hoped that I'd be able to say the same in time. I listened to the assignments being made, reminders about what we needed to accomplish. I did better with Captain America, in his suit, than I did with Steve Rogers. I could just look at the suit, not the man. It was a lot easier to interact with the hero. I nodded acceptance of my assignment, and I moved out with the others when the ramp went down.

I was feeling pretty good as we got deeper into the mission. I'd had the opportunity to damage some bad guys with Mr Pointy, and that, unfortunately, cheered me up. Things were going well until I came face to face with a guy in a metal mask. Not one of the ones on my team, regrettably. And he was completely out of my weight class. In two moves he had disarmed me and snapped Mr Pointy's pole. Shit.

"Who are you?" I asked, gripping Martha and DB.

"Crossbones," he said in a tone full of satisfaction.

"I'm sorry, who?"

He seemed angry that I hadn't heard of him.

"Crossbones." I shook my head.

"I used to be Brock Rumlow," he said, almost to himself.

"Sorry, not ringing a bell."

That seemed to make him madder. He grabbed my throat and punched me. I could feel my nose break with a sickening crunch, and the pain was blinding. "Your boyfriend knows who I am," he snarled, then threw me across the room.

"I don't have a boyfriend," I said thickly. "If you mean Captain America, that's so over."

Smoothly and swiftly, he crossed to me, grabbing my left wrist. "I think I can still hurt him," he said, then slammed my arm on the corner of the stone wall where it became a window. My upper arm broke with a wet crack and the shoulder dislocated. I screamed, trying to keep myself from falling. He ripped off his mask, revealing a horrifically scarred face. "This is what he did to me," he growled, pacing away. If rabies had a sound, it would be this guy.

He came toward me again, and I knew if he got his hands on me one more time, I was going to die. So I reached for my waist, snapped the handle straight, and the urumi whispered damage and pain as it uncoiled from my waist. I didn't wait; I immediately began to swing it, the tones from the blades discordant and eerie. It took him by surprise; it almost sounded like it sizzled when it hit the stone floor. I didn't dare let him become acclimated, and went on the offense. The metal blades cut into him savagely where he wasn't armored, damaging the metal where he was. A few more passes, and he was on the floor. The odd thing was that he wasn't screaming in pain. And I wanted him to be. The horrible thing is that I didn't want to stop until he was still and the blood had ceased to flow.

"P?" a voice asked cautiously, as someone edged into the room beyond my current range. Momentarily distracted, I backed off Crossbones for a moment although I kept the blades shrieking. "P, who is that?" Natasha asked.

"Said his name was Crossbones," I said, coughing from the blood running down my throat, returning my attention to him. The smell of urine and feces rose from him. 

"That's not possible," she said. "He's dead."

"You keep saying that. Well, he said that his code name was Crossbones and that his name was Brock Rumlow, so maybe he's not who you think he is. Doesn't matter, he's shortly not going to be anybody's problem." I stepped forward as she started to mutter over coms.

A metal hand caught my wrist. "P, we need to interrogate him," Tony said calmly. "And you look like you could use some treatment. Come on, here's Sam. Let him take a look at you." His voice was gentle but firm. I took another look at the meat on the floor and turned. I flicked the blades one more time to get the blood off, then awkwardly captured the blades. I needed two hands to put them back in the sheath, and I only had one.

Sam stepped up and we walked back to the quinjet. He helped me up onto the med table and took off my mask, very carefully. The blood that had been trapped underneath streamed down my chin and throat to be absorbed by my suit, and he hit the button to activate the AI as he packed my nose as gently as he could. Then I braced myself as best as I could as he put my shoulder back, seeing stars, and listened to the treatment recommendations from the AI. Then he put an inflatable cast on my arm and numbed my face and did something to my nose, which hurt even through the numbness. He gave me a massive dose of ibuprofin because I won't take opioids (don't like the feeling) and I felt the jet rise as Clint headed for home. It was quiet in the jet. I didn't even know if we'd gotten Viper and right then I just didn't care. I fell asleep and didn't wake up until we landed. Medical was waiting and they hustled me and my victim to the clinic where they checked my nose, set my arm, and looked at my shoulder. Then they made me stay overnight for observation, which was fine but irritating as nurses came in every time I managed to get some sleep. 

I made it out in time for the team meeting, where I found that although we hadn't captured Viper, we'd hurt her. Literally; she'd been wounded too, but we had enough information to screw with her bank accounts and her stronghold was in ruins. So, yay us. As usual, our cams were put up for analysis. Mine got special attention because of my opponent. We watched the exchange in silence, and I was reminded that I'd need a new poleaxe after Mr Pointy's destruction. I hadn't brought it back with me. There was a lot of discussion about whats-his-name, since he was supposed to have been blown up in Nigeria. He was still in the clinic being patched up. I paid only passing attention as I chipped fingernail polish off my thumb. I tuned in again when Nick asked if I had anything to add. I just said no, and the meeting soon wrapped up.

Cap caught up with me as I waited for the elevator. He looked all tragic and sad, and I cut him off when he tried to take on blame for my condition.

"Not everything is your responsibility," I said as crisply as I was able. And when he opened his mouth again, I just shot him a look and stepped out of the elevator just before the doors closed. I'd rather take the stairs.

Bucky caught up with me outside. He wanted to talk about my performance , so I listened as he praised my toughness and gave a few notes he had. I stopped him when he said "Steve--". He looked at me with a certain amount of sympathy, and walked on. I turned and went back up to Nick's office. I took the elevator this time.

I came out with a certain amount of satisfaction and a hell of a lot of relief. I took a nap in my workshop, then went into the city for a haircut. I was tired of being me. I got my hair colored an uninteresting brown as well as a shorter cut, and after that I went home. I'd told the horrified stylist that I'd been in a car wreck. I stopped by campus again and picked up some makeup that the scientists had developed that would cover any bruising, no matter how extensive. I looked like a racoon.

The next morning, I packed up Sigurd and we set out on a road trip.


	34. Road trip

We took a train down to California; the first couple of days, I didn't want to drive with only one hand but I didn't want to stay around Seattle. And the ride down the coast was lovely. Sigurd particularly enjoyed it. I mostly just stared out the window. Once I got used to the sway of the train, it was relaxing. When we got down to California, I rented a car and we went to the redwood forests and Yosemite. I was feeling a lot better when we got to Yosemite and we did some hiking on the easier trails where my risk of slipping was less. My shoulder was much improved but the arm still had quite a way to go. Then we hit the road, going to major sites as well as spending some time in smaller places. We went to the Grand Canyon and drove across Texas to New Orleans, where we ate a lot of beignets and I had too many hurricanes one night. Then we went camping in the Smokies for a few weeks, which Sigurd loved. Then we passed through DC, where I took Sigurd on a walking tour of the monuments. He wasn't all that impressed.

When we got to New York, the first couple of hotels I tried wouldn't let me register because Sigurd was so big, they feared he was vicious. 

In a temper, I spent about five minutes rooting around in my wallet until I found what I was looking for, and used my pass card to park in the underground garage in Stark Tower. The security guard made us sign in. "I don't know you," he said, looking at my signature.

"That was kind of the point," I said, and swiped the card on the gate to let me through to the elevators. Sigurd woofed at him as we walked to the elevator that went just to the Avenger level. Then I changed my mind and went to Peter's office first, leaving him a note that I was going to be in town for a bit. Then I went upstairs. I showered and changed, and the woman who worked as the concierge said that we were the only ones staying on the private floors. I got a recommendation for a dog groomer and made a couple of requests, then we went out. First to the groomer, where Sigurd reveled in the attention, then we went to Con's office where I had an appointment. I was ready to talk about what had happened, finally. After that, I went back to the Tower, got the cast off my arm finally, and changed for dinner. The concierge had gotten me a reservation at a very good restaurant, discreet, not flashy. Sigurd listened as the concierge introduced another employee who would be responsible for his meals while we were staying. His tail wagged happily as they walked away. I smiled and went to the restaurant.

I'd ordered an appetizer by the time Tony showed up.

"You're a little later than I expected," I said mildly.

"Oh, you know, I had to rearrange my schedule a bit. Put me behind. Coming out to New York suddenly wasn't really in the plans."

I snorted. "I'm sure you've been tracking me." I'd known that he'd have been notified the instant I swiped my passcard at the Tower. He didn't bother to confirm, just poached one of the appetizers when it showed up. The waiter immediately offered to bring another plate, but I shook my head. "He'll just eat off my plate," I said in resignation, and by the time the waiter came back, the appetizers were all gone. We ordered quickly, the waiter a little dazzled by Tony, who as usual accepted it as his due. I smiled a little. I'd missed his larger than life little self.

"I can't believe you went camping," he said, sniffing the wine.

"Ever been?" I asked, and he made a face. I laughed, for the first time in a long time. "Then don't knock it till you try it." There was more chat as Tony moaned about running a billion dollar empire while I played around in the dirt.

"So no news about Bruce?" I asked as I ate the last of my dessert.

"Not concrete, but Thor is following up on something Heimdall apparently saw," Tony said. I saw him look around for the waiter, but I was one up on him. I'd given him my card when I was seated. When the waiter came over, he presented me with the check, which I took care of before Tony could do more than draw breath to squawk. I beamed at him.

Back at the Tower, Sigurd was sprawled out on one of the sofas. He roused long enough to woof a greeting, then sacked out again. Tony offered me a drink and handed me some whiskey. Nice.

"So when are you coming back?" he asked directly. "We need you."

"Not for awhile yet," I said. "Stop pouting. It's a leave of absence, not a resignation."

"Yes, and you've been touristing around for a good long time, seeing the sights."

"I never took Sigurd anywhere nice," I shrugged. "I felt he deserved to go someplace fun."

"Aren't you bored? You haven't done anything heroic for a couple of months now."

"Not true," I defended myself. "I made a teenage boy pick up his trash in Yosemite. And Sigurd sat on a purse snatcher in New Orleans until the police arrived." Tony snorted.

"Have to say I'm not really digging the hair," he said, changing the subject abruptly. I shrugged. "It's so bland now. You look like anybody."

I stared at him in mild exasperation. "That was kind of the point. Nobody's given me a second look unless they're goggling at Sigurd." He made a sound of discontent in his throat.

"Your nose looks good." I started to laugh. "What? So when are you coming back?"

"Not for awhile yet," I said in a tone that invited no dissent. "I need to stay for a little bit longer here. Then we're going to go look at the changing leaves. Then we'll stop off at Chicago and Yellowstone."

"What is this obsession with camping?" he asked in disbelief.

"I'm not a big fan of the log cabin aesthetic," I said logically.

"So you're seeing your shrink friend," he said, and I looked at him politely. "Good. She can get your head on straight. Have you even been keeping up with the news?"

"Not really, but I heard you guys prevented the transfer of nuclear material to a terrorist group in the Middle East. Excellent work," I said, holding out my fist. Tony bumped it with his. "Fist bump for liberty."

"Yeah, that went all right," Tony said, nudging me. "So you got your cast off, your shoulder's healed, so's your nose. You're not a hundred percent yet, but you can start getting back into shape."

"Have you hacked my medical records too, Tony?" I asked archly.

"No, they're protected by HIPPA," he defended himself, and I just shook my head.

He kept pushing for me to cut my leave short, and I kept refusing. Finally, he sighed. "You'll be back when you're back," he said with resignation, and I nodded. "But your passive-aggressive thing kind of sucks."

"Would you rather I go ballistic and cause some damage instead?" I asked levelly. "Because I don't handle emotions very well." And that was one of the reasons I was here, to see Con. There just have to be better ways of dealing with conflict than leaving, even if it was only temporary. Although it had also been nice to catch up with my college friends along the way in Dallas, Nashville, and DC.

We sat in silence for a bit, then I leaned against him and he started telling me stories about what I'd been missing. He ruffled my hair.

"I still don't like it. I'm used to you looking like a white flag." I jabbed his ribs and when he protested, tickled him with a fair lack of mercy. That ended when he squirmed off the couch; he grabbed me so I fell on the floor too.

"Oh, hey, Emma, Mr Stark," a new voice said, a little nervously, and I looked over to see Peter standing awkwardly by the door. I left Tony to get the last few giggles out, and walked over to give him a hug. "I didn't mean to interrupt anything," he said, then did a double take. "What did you do to your hair?'

"See?" Tony inquired, picking himself up and coming over.

I led Peter over to the couches. From the way he was looking around, I thought he probably hadn't been up here before. "You're one of us, Pete, you can come here any time you want or need to."

"It's weird when nobody's around," he said.

"Just remember it's an option," I encouraged.

"So where have you been? Nobody's had anything to say," he said.

I snorted and pointed to Tony. "You were asking the wrong people. Tony hacked my bank account," I said. I was going to have to have a word with my bank. "He knew where I was." Tony shrugged, unrepentant. The conversation moved on, he was going to ask a girl named Mary Jane to Homecoming, but he was a little concerned about the slow dances. So I taught him to two-step and how to waltz; he wasn't going to need it at a high school dance, but the box step is quite useful. We talked until he had to go; he didn't want May to worry about him. I congratulated him again on his prize-winning science experiment and a photo competition he'd won, and gave him another hug before he left. Tony told him to ask if he wanted to know something.

"He means it," I reassured him. "It isn't going to be an imposition." I didn't even have to nudge Tony to get him to agree.

"Where did you learn how to dance?" Tony asked as we settled back on the sofa.

"Grandpa. He and Grandma loved to go out dancing. I learned how to waltz and foxtrot by standing on his shoes when I was a little girl. When I got older, he taught me jitterbug and swing, and I picked up some Latin dances in a social dance class in college." He got up and found some music in 3/4 time, and offered his hand to me. We waltzed all over the top floor of Stark Tower.

I felt really good the next morning, feeling maybe that I was going to be ok after all. Tony went back that morning, and I finished what I'd needed to achieve in New York. Sigurd and I went to look at beautiful changing leaves, then swung over on the road to Chicago.

"Do you really want to go to the city?" I asked Sigurd, and he made a kind of 'eh' noise. So we went straight to Yellowstone, where we toured the remarkable scenery and Sigurd saw his first bison. We were watching Old Faithful erupt when somebody stepped up right beside me. I smiled a little when I saw Phil. 

"You're quite the man of mystery," I noted with a smile.

"It's easier to keep a certain distance," he admitted, watching the geyser.

"I imagine that even a temporary death would be disconcerting."

"It wasn't the dying so much as the revivification," he said, and the humor left his face. I squeezed his shoulder. "But it's been nice running in to you." He flashed a quick smile at me and handed me another flash drive discreetly.

"How did you know I'd be here?"

"I hacked Stark," he said unrepentantly, and I started to laugh. "Take care of yourself. Individually, the Avengers are easy enough to deal with, although Tony can be a handful. Together, though, there's quite a gestalt that can turn into a real...challenge."

"You too, Phil. I enjoy our little meet and greets. Maybe next time we should get coffee too." He smiled.

"I like cream and sugar." I smiled back, genuinely entertained. For such a cypher, he seemed like a really nice person. He faded away, and later I checked the drive. It was information on Viper's possible boltholes, what she was doing for money these days, and her known associates. There was also a bit about how Sharon Carter had been censured.

"In part for leaking classified information to unauthorized extra-governmental entities," I read aloud to Sigurd. "Huh. They must have found out about Comic Con." 

Then we got on the road to Seattle.

We got home and we had a huge surprise in the form of Torburn, who was waiting for us. He wagged his whole body and barked excitedly, frisking and cavorting. Sigurd joined his son running around, as I brought in our stuff after paying the taxi. Torburn calmed down enough that I could ask about his mom; he seemed happy, so I deduced she was ok. This alone was worth coming back. After everybody calmed down, I left the dogs at home and went out to run some errands, ending at the grocery store. Back home, I went online to see what I'd missed on my road trip. There was the usual politics, blah, blah; I'd kept up with sports because people loved to talk about their favorite teams. Then there was an interesting photograph when I Googled Avengers; somebody had caught Steve with a familiar blonde woman. His hand was on her ass and she was playing with his belt buckle. He obviously felt, after Comic Con, that a ball cap was an excellent disguise. I shook my head in disbelief. The photo ran side by side with one from Comic Con and our differences in body type and height pointed out. The article wondered where Paladin was. I bared my teeth. I bet this is what drew the CIA's attention to Sharon and why she'd been censured.

We went in to work the next morning, and I felt centered and focused, although I wondered how long that would last once I started running into people again. I ran through some strategies for dealing with emotional distress that I'd learned from Con, just to be prepared. After breakfast (the caf workers all welcomed me back, which was nice; I got caught up on their news too), I went down to see Loki, who was pleased to see me again, and I promised to come down for a movie night soon. I thought I'd bring the original Star Wars; I had the original theatrical version, un-screwed with by George Lucas. Then it was out to my workshop, where I sorted a ton of email and assembled a priority list of requests. 

"This looks interesting," I muttered, and sent the specs to my tablet as the door opened smoothly. I looked up to see Steve in the doorway.


	35. First day back

Urgh. Exes. My tablet pinged with a confirmation for the meeting.

"I heard you were in the area," he said, walking cautiously over. "Wasn't sure when you were coming back in."

"I got in yesterday, needed to get settled in."

"Sooo...how was your trip?"

"It was fine. Saw some national parks that were new to me."

He nodded. Get to the point, won't you? "I've made a lot of progress," he mentioned.

"Good. I'm glad you got help." He nodded some more. I felt tension coiling in my gut, and took a breath, consciously relaxing. "Well, it's been nice to catch up, but I need to see some people about a project."

Surprise and a flash of anger crossed his handsome face. I looked at him politely, unimpressed. "I wanted to ask you out to dinner," he said. "I want to resume our relationship again."

"No and no," I said, shutting down my laptop and picking up the tablet.

"What?" he said, looking alarmed.

"I told you that I don't do breaks," I said. "Don't you remember?"

"I told you that I just needed some space. I need you."

That brought up my ire. I tapped into my pad, then showed him the photos I found. "You need me, huh? Looks like what you 'needed' was a piece of ass."

"That's not fair. We weren't together," he protested, frowning.

"You can't have it both ways. Either you needed me or you replaced me. Looks like you chose. But it's moot, because, as I said, I don't do breaks. I am not a convenience."

"Emma--"

"No. You listen." I drew myself up straight. I've been preparing for this, all the time I spent with Con working on my abandonment issues and my self-esteem. "This has been all about what you need. Never once have you asked what I need or even want. And what I need is a man who is a true partner. Who treats me as an equal, trusts me as much as I trust him. Who is with me for the duration, not just when it's easy and fun and there's lots of sex. You say you're an old-fashioned guy, but you've certainly adopted the worst of modern masculinity. You've said it would have been different with Peggy, and that's fair because she and I are different people. But to say that you wouldn't lean on me, wouldn't trust me, wouldn't let me help you means that I'm inferior to Peggy in your estimation. Not as good, not her equal. And I'm not going to play second fiddle to anybody, especially a dead woman. The thing about Peggy is that she was your first love. You were parted in a tragic manner, and you reunited at the end of her life, so you could wallow in the unconsummated rosy light of a doomed, passionate romance.

"But that's over. And I am not going to be anybody's backup choice. Ultimately, you are a selfish man. You go out and save the world on a regular basis and you come back here and don't have to lift a finger for yourself. Housekeeping, laundry, meals, it's all taken care of for anybody living here. You have no responsibilities for anything but the job. And I think that that's started to affect your mindset. I think you, like Tony, feel entitled to what you want because you've been off saving the world. It hasn't apparently crossed your mind that I do my part to save the world too, but you also expect me to cater to you.

"You never asked what I wanted or needed. Part of that is on me because we were usually in accord and I gave in on the rest because they were small concessions. I never asserted myself until the end, and you didn't listen to me. You didn't address what I said at all. It was only about you. And looking back, that's been our pattern from the beginning. You show up, ask for something, I give it, you move on and I'm left wondering what the hell just happened. I've been driven out of two countries because of you. Do you have any idea how humiliating it is to be deported? Trying to help you has gotten me attacked by a mob, twice, and a guy I didn't even know was going to kill me because of a beef he has with you. And then you act like the other person is unreasonable if they don't go along with what you want. I gave you everything I had, all my devotion and love that I had to give. And it didn't even mean anything. You took it for granted. Like you had a right to it. You don't. Love isn't a one-way street. You have to give too. You have to give what you take, loyalty, compassion, help, devotion--or one day you find that the well's run dry because all the emotion's gone out; it hasn't been refilled.

"The man I admire most on this team is Clint. He's got his job, which he does beautifully, but then he goes home, and it doesn't matter if it was the most perfect op ever or the worst, but he goes home and he's a husband and a father and a farmer. He knows where his responsibilities are and he doesn't shirk them. He knows what it means to live up to them. Did you know Laura had a cancer scare last year? The day she had to go in for her biopsy there was a minor op, and he had to pilot the quinjet. He tried to get out of it but he couldn't, so he asked me to take her. But he didn't have to go, because he taught you how to pilot. But you don't. When was the last time you you went out of your way to help somebody when it wasn't on a mission? You talk a good game about the sacrifice play, but when was the last time you lay on the wire so the next guy could get through? You believe your hype, but you don't live up to it as much as you think." I sighed, trying not to feel defeated. "The one person you completely love and trust is Bucky. Because of all that history."

"And you're so much better than me?" His face is red now.

"No. I'm not an especially good person." I'd had a lot of mileage to drive as I thought about all this, and Constance had helped me articulate what I felt. What to do about it was up to me. "I have a lot of issues myself. My fears and insecurities. I used to worry if I was enough of a woman for you. I never thought to ask myself if you were enough of a man for me. My saving grace is that I care enough about other people to exert myself."

"Oh, really," he said. I looked at him flatly.

"Who do you think organizes the birthday parties around here? I can guarantee it's not Promotions or Nick. Do you remember there being a party around Labor Day last year?" He sort of shook his head. "No, and that's because there wasn't one. It was my birthday and it seemed weird to plan my own party. So I didn't have one. The folks in the lab gave me one, which was a really nice surprise, and my friends sent me presents and called, but I didn't get a single 'happy birthday' from anyone on the team. But a couple hours after I got home from work, there was a knock on my door and on the steps were Laura and Clint and the kids. She'd baked me a cake. From scratch. Red velvet with cream cheese frosting." I smiled at the memory. "She even apologized for not having put any decorations on it past a candle." It had been the first time anybody had baked me a cake from scratch since my grandma died, and it had been delicious. "Who on the team makes sure that everybody else has what they need? That would be me. Sharpies at conventions. The use of my house for a meeting of fugitives. Locating weirdos for health care challenges."

"I never thought about that, but you're right," a new voice said. I jerked when I saw Bucky. "You see what needs to be done and it gets done." Steve scowled at his best friend.

"Whose side are you on?"

"Hers, I think," he said slowly. "Because I think she's right. Aside from me, you're just phoning it in. You say what's expected and do what you need to, but you're not doing it for the same reasons you used to. You do it because it's expected, not because it's right."

Man, Bucky doesn't talk much, but when he does, he's formidable.

I grabbed my tablet and left for my meeting as Steve started in on Bucky.

I hustled, and I was only a couple minutes late to the garage. The mechanics were interested in building a new type of engine, one that ran on an arc-reactor technology, and they wanted to know if I could help with the fabrication since the tolerances were so tight. We spent a couple hours discussing what was needed and how they hoped the engine would work, and then it was off to another meeting with the rest of the team. It was a lunch meeting, so I got to eat as I listened to a brief summary of what had been going on in my absence, then new information. I slid the flash drive down the table. "Phil caught up with me on my last stop," I said. Nick gave me a sharp look and brought up the information. The table started dissecting the data as it came up.

"How did he know where to find you?" Tony whispered to me under the cover of the chatter. I grinned.

"He hacked you," I whispered back, pressing my fingers to my lips to hold back the gurgle of laughter. Tony looked aghast, then peeved.

After the meeting (the notes about Sharon had been seen but nobody commented) Nick asked me to stay put. "Why didn't you get this to me earlier?" he said as soon as the last person left the room.

"I looked at it, it's information, but nothing on her current whereabouts or immediate plans," I responded. "Nothing time-sensitive. And Phil gave the drive to me, when I was on vacation. Whenever he gives me something, he just hands it over. He doesn't say, 'share this with the group' or 'give this to Nick.' So I really don't have to give you the drives because they belong to me." Nick squeezed his eye shut.

"He knows you'll pass it on," he said sternly.

"Does he? I didn't even know he existed until I met him. How does he know I'm a team player and not more of a rogue like Tony?"

He muttered something I didn't catch. "Stark's a bad influence on you," he growled, and gestured toward the door.

Natasha and Wanda were waiting for me by the stairs. "What did Fury want?" Natasha asked.

"Chew me out for not getting the drive to him immediately."

"There wasn't anything critical on it," she said dismissively. "Look, Wanda and I have started doing mornings at a spa every couple of weeks. Massages, facials, nails. It's nice."

"We go to a new one each time," Wanda said, taking my arm. "Next one is tomorrow. You need to come with us." She fluffed my hair. "Tony said you'd colored it an unattractive color."

Natasha started to laugh. "It was more descriptive than that, but I'll spare you the details."

"I did it so people wouldn't connect me with Paladin. I needed a break from her. It was hard enough to explain Sigurd, but at least Torburn was visiting his mom or it would have been impossible to pass as a normal person. When I got back, I had a stylist strip the color." I frowned. It had taken some harsh chemicals, and I was pretty sure that if the wind blew my hair too hard it would all break off.

"The people who do the cosmetics for us might have something that would help," Natasha said, fingering the fragile strands.

"The cut's nice," Wanda said.

I smiled at them. "I'm in for tomorrow. I'll make an appointment at the groomers and leave the pups for their own treatments too." We parted on the path and I took the branch that led to my workshop. But first I stopped by the labs.

"We've been working on something since a mission Natasha had that required her to hide her red. This should help," I was told, and given a tub of something. It looked gooey rather than creamy. "It's got ceramides and keratin and vitamins, oils and amino acids and proteins, and a bunch of other stuff." He gingerly touched my hair. "Leave it on wet hair for a half hour and wrap your hair in a hot towel. You'll have to shampoo it out. It should make a big difference. Oh, and it stinks, so you'll probably have to have the windows open." I looked at the container with caution and thanked him for the help. "I'll send a questionnaire for you to fill out."

Stink was an understatement. The dogs actually fled the house and I had to open up all the windows to get the odor out. But it really worked. My hair was beautiful afterward. And to be fair, the smell didn't cling once the goo was washed away. Did had to clean the shower after, though.

"So what did Steve have to say for himself when you got back?" Natasha wanted to know as we were getting ready for the massages.

"Wanted to get back together."

"Um...did you see..." Wanda said, not sure how explicit to be.

"Yep."

"I heard that nothing really happened," Natasha said, and we leaned in. "He said the wrong name before it got very far." We all 'oooohed'. I started to laugh.

"I bet it was deflating to hear him say your aunt's name," I said cynically.

Natasha cuffed me. "He didn't say 'Peggy,' idiot," she scolded.

"Where'd you hear that?" Wanda asked, and Natasha colored.

"James might have mentioned it," she said, trying for casual.

"James?" Wanda and I said together.

"It's his name," she defended herself. "James Buchanan Barnes."

"Ooooh," I said. "How long has this been going on?"

The Black Widow blushed really red. "A few weeks." She looked around at us. "Do you think it's too soon?"

Wanda and I looked at each other. "No, I think that if Bruce were able to, he'd have come back by now," I stated my opinion, and Wanda agreed.

"I don't actually know if that's true," Natasha said, surprising us both. "He doesn't like turning into the Other Guy, the damage and hurt he causes. If he found himself in a situation where that's not a concern, he might not want to come back."

Before we had to think of something to say, the masseurs came in. Nice.

Over lunch, I told them about my travels. "Tony went to New York about that time," Wanda said. "Did you run into him at all?"

"Yes," I said, laughing. "I stayed at Stark Tower because the hotels were being fussy about Sigurd. He was trying to get me to come back early."

"Immovable object and the irresistible force," Natasha cracked. "Guess we know who won."

"We didn't go to Chicago as planned, but we did stay in Yellowstone longer to make up for it," I allowed, and they laughed. "Saw Peter. He's taking a girl he has a crush on to Homecoming." I explained about the tradition.

"What else did you do?" Natasha asked, poking at her salad.

"Did a little shopping, but mostly I saw my friend Constance."

"Your psychiatrist friend?" I nodded.

"Apparently I have abandonment issues from my father leaving when I was still in utero," I said, shaking my head. "Con said it's linked into my low self-esteem and it's why I actually physically leave. So I can use distance to help protect myself and make it safe to deal with whatever happened." I took a bite of the bread. "It's all pretty depressing, really."

"Huh. Now I see it," Natasha said after a bit. "You're very proud of your work, but not about the person who creates everything."

"I did see a big decline after you left," Wanda spoke up. "It's not as much fun when you're gone. Tony sharpens his wits on the rest of us, unfortunately. It was dull, and I saw how much you do for everyone. The little things that you don't appreciate until they're gone. So I wanted to be sure to thank you for all the things you do. The meeting room ran out of some things, you know how Steve actually takes notes on paper still, and the supply ran out. Housekeeping didn't do it because it was never on their list of things to check. Sam's favorite snacks in the rec room, the mints I like, Tony's favorite whiskey." She patted my hand.

Natasha rolled her eyes. "He had to drink blended for a couple of days. It was as if the end times had come."

"I hate to ask, but are you just saying that? Because I called Steve out for not paying attention," I said. Natasha raised her eyebrows.

"No, I hadn't heard about that. What happened?"

"He wanted to get back together; his therapy's going well, wanted to end our break."

"Oh, God," Wanda said, pressing her fingertips to her eyes.

I nodded. "So I told him that I'd meant it when I said I don't do breaks, and there was a bit about the photograph, then I laid into him about being thoughtless and careless." I grimaced. "I said that he was buying into the corporate image of Captain America and had lost his driving principles." They winced too. "But both he and Tony kind of are their superhero identities. They don't keep a strict line between the two parts of themselves. It looks to me like Steve is so invested in saving the world that he takes everything for granted when he comes back here. There's nothing to distract him."

"What do you mean?" asked Natasha.

"I can only tell you about my experience. The real reason I bought my house is because the housing at the compound felt like a hotel. In my home, I cook, do the cleaning, pick up the dog toys, fix it if something goes wrong. In the residence, I didn't do anything besides my laundry and cleaning up after the dogs. I feel more responsible and not so self centered, having other things to do. "

"Scrubbing toilets keeps you humble," Wanda nodded, and we burst out laughing.

"I can see that," Natasha said. "It is an indolent life we lead here. Although I always do my own laundry. I don't like other people doing my clothes. And you've almost always cleaned your workshop."

"They kept tidying things," I said in irritation.

"It's their job," Wanda said, laughing again.

"I know, but it was too much. So very, very tidy."

"So what are you going to do?" Natasha asked, redirecting me.

"Same thing I did before. Do my work, hang out, play with the dogs."

"That's lonely," Wanda pointed out. "If things are broken with Steve, do you think you'll see somebody else? You could date Tony. I bet he'd shape up for you."

"No, I can't," I said. "And I'm not going to risk another meltdown with a teammate."

"And Tony's a handful," Natasha said.

"Well, if you don't patch things up with Steve, you should at least find somebody outside for a casual relationship," Wanda advised. "You were happier and more relaxed once you started having regular sex. You could join a sex club; they're very sex-positive here in Seattle." I inhaled my water and began to choke. Natasha smirked as she thumped my back.

"Thank you for the advice," I gasped once my airway was clear. "But I've got a lot to do at work right how; a lot of stuff piled up. And Crossbones broke Mr Pointy, it was left there, so I've got to make a new weapon."

"Are you going to make another poleaxe or try something new?" Natasha asked.

"I dunno. I'll have to run it past Bucky, but I went to a Renaissance fair when I was on the road trip and tried a regular sword. It's kind of slash and bash, which is definitely my fighting style." We talked about the fair; Wanda had never been to one and Natasha had, but she was stalking a target so it didn't count.

"It's kind of a typically American thing, to kind of make something generic and ignore the history, put on costumes and have fun, but it was fun. There were a lot of artisans there, glassblowers, wood carvers, potters, leather crafters, weapons. Damn. I forgot, I got each of you a present. I'll have to bring them to work, I've been toting them around for a week now. I tried the sword work and the archery, which was also fun. My arm is still weak from the cast, so I didn't do very well. They had llamas to pet." I laughed. "They're so pretty and soft, but they've got tempers. They spit a lot."

"I'd have thought you'd get along well then," Natasha teased.

"We did. They didn't spit on me," I shot back.

"I don't think I want to know why anyone would be spitting on you, Emma," a new voice said, and I looked up to see Laura and Clint and the kids. I stood up and she kissed my cheek. "Clint said you had gotten back. I wish I'd known, I'd have made a casserole for you when you got home." We invited them to join us, and I picked up my Renaissance fair story. "Can we get a llama?" one of the kids asked Clint.

"Now look what you've done," he said, sighing. "If I have to get a llama, it's all on you." I grinned.

"I got you something too," I told Laura. "I'll have to find it and bring it over." Then I remembered. "You too," I told Clint. "I might actually have it with me, I put it in my purse." I had to take out my wallet, the little makeup case, and a bunch of receipts, but there it was in the bottom. I handed over a black leather shooting glove; there was a hawk hand tooled on the strap that goes over the back of the hand. "I remember you lost yours the last time we were out and while I'm sure you replaced it, it never hurts to have a spare." Clint tried it on; it fit well. Whew.

By the end of lunch, I was feeling a whole lot better about being home. As we walked out to the car, Natasha said, "Don't worry, I'll be discreet about what you said."

Wanda nodded. "Not everybody needs to know."

"Thank you," I said. We picked up the pups and went back to the complex, everybody happy and relaxed.


	36. Another side to the story

Bucky came by that afternoon to discuss training. While I wasn't cleared for training yet, since I was working with a physiotherapist to rehabilitate my arm and shoulder, I could practice throwing knives and we needed to discuss my weapon choice. Ultimately, after discussing the pros and cons, we agreed that I'd just make another poleaxe.

"I didn't realize nobody brought it back," Bucky said, shaking his head. "But we were kind of in disarray after we saw the scene."

"I wish I had it," I said. "It was one of my alloys, and I don't like the idea of somebody finding it and examining it."

Bucky sighed. "I don't think you fully appreciate what you looked like when we got there. There was a bloody mess on the ground, your arm was dangling, your shoulder was out of the socket, you were covered with blood spatter. The urumi sounded vicious. I couldn't see your face, which was really disturbing. I really thought you were going to whip him to death. Then when Sam took off your mask, I wished he hadn't. I'd have brought the pieces back if I'd have thought about it."

That made me pause. If Bucky had that reaction, what had the others thought?

"Natasha was the first one you listened to when she spoke, but she wasn't in position to stop you. Stark was the only one who came into the room behind you. You wouldn't put that sword down, and nobody knew what would happen if they stepped up. And we didn't know if you were hurt anywhere else."

"OK," I said finally. "I really just liked that poleaxe, you know."

"It's best not to get too attached to your weapons," he said. "But just think about it. Now you can tweak the design. You were thinking that the blade was too big." We discussed possible design changes.

Just before he left, he paused. "Natasha said that she told you about her and me," he said, and waited for a reaction.

I nodded. "I think it's good. The two of you probably understand each other pretty well. Shared experiences," I said, kind of awkwardly. He nodded, then looked me in the eye, something he rarely does unless he's trying to say something important.

"I thought at first, maybe you and me... but I saw that Steve was interested in you too and I thought that I'd wait and see. I didn't want to make you choose. But he does love you, so that's off the table. And, as you say, we have a lot in common. I don't feel as ugly when I'm with her because she has a pretty good idea of what was done to me, what I went through. And vice versa."

"It's true I don't know what the cost of your life was after you were captured," I said, touching his metal arm. "How is this doing?"

"Really good. Normally I don't remember it's not like the other one." I smiled. "I'm just saying this so you understand that I'm not going to be asking Natasha about you or gossiping. And I'm just going to say this once to get it out of my system, I'm not going to be interfering with you about Steve. You know how we are, and I think he was wrong, but I'm also going to appeal to your sense of fairness and logic."

"You're going right for my vanity," I muttered, and a smile briefly lit his face.

"No, I'm not appealing to your intellect," he twitted, and this time I smiled. "It's true that Steve was an ass. But I'd like you to consider his situation. Everybody loves Captain America, pretty much. He got kind of caught up in that, started to kind of buy into the whole "the man, the myth, the legend" thing. He kind of lost his way. You're one of the few people in the world who see the guy under the suit. I was brought out of cryostasis periodically for training and missions, so I was able to see how the world changed as time went on. But he didn't have that...advantage. It's been a struggle to adjust to a new public morality, all the new technology, all the changes. He lives in the world, he's adapting, but he kind of idealizes the past. It was never really as clear-cut as he likes to remember, but it was generally less complicated. And doing the right thing, which has been his personal creed for as long as I've known him, was easier to see back then. Life seemed more black and white."

I bit my lip. "I've been seeing him as Cap a lot recently. Because I don't want to rip off Cap's face."

He smiled a bit. "Whatever keeps his face on," he said. "Just...please don't tell him that." After a moment, I nodded.

"You've been like his big brother more than his friend," I observed, which made his observations valued. He nodded. "What did you think when you saw who rescued you, how he'd changed?"

He grinned. " Like my little brother grew up and I missed it. I had to join the Howling Commandos. I didn't want him to get in trouble without me." The grin slid away.

"He adores strong women. His mom, before she got sick, was strong. Peggy was strong. You're strong, regardless of what you think about yourself. But he is also a product of his time, where women's focus was usually on their families. I can see where it looks to you like he was taking you for granted, and I guess that's true, but he didn't mean to. It's just that for most of his life, he's been accustomed to a type of expectation of a woman in a family. He never really thought he'd have one, I don't think. He was really focused on the war, and Peggy, who did like him before he was chosen for that experiment. Whatever Steve thinks, I don't know if it would have worked out between them after the war. She saw herself continuing in her work, and Steve would have wanted her to settle down with him, have a family. By that, I don't mean her quitting her job, just leaving it at the end of the day. Create a refuge for them outside of the world, but Peggy never really separated work from personal time. She was really devoted to her work and she was really good at it, but there was no off switch. I was kept updated on her in case they decided she was a target, but somehow she never quite topped over that far. I always thought she settled, later in her life. Her husband never pressed her, as far as it was known, to quit or scale back when they had kids. She seemed to be a good mother, but her focus was always on her work. Steve would have expected her to put the kids first when she was home."

"Well, I'm pretty much at the point where it would be extremely difficult to get pregnant, and the risk of birth defects is way up, so there wouldn't be any family with me," I said bluntly. "And I would continue my work. There'd have to be a nanny, and the kid would have to have a bodyguard. Any kid I had would be a target if it was known that I had one."

"You gave it some thought."

"While I was still in the jungle, before Steve showed up, I realized that I was running out of time. I had to decide whether I wanted to have kids. I made a list of pros and cons. The cons won. They've only gotten more compelling and extensive," I shrugged. Steve and I had never talked about it. Part of the difficulty back then was finding a suitable sperm donor, I didn't feel myself capable of caring for a baby in the jungle, and I wasn't ready to leave. Later, I thought about it again, during my time in Austria, but the cons were even more enormous by then. And recently they had become unsurmountable.

"Well, Steve came to the same realization. Any kid of Captain America would have a target on his or her back, so he's actively resolved not to have any."

There was a silence. "Ok, thanks," I said, patting his arm, and he nodded and left. I had some things to consider.

I looked at the drawings we'd made of my new weapon, then had to hustle to shut up the workshop. I was due in the clinic.

I stayed overnight and was a little late getting to the Avengers meeting. We were going to get some rain; my arm twinged now when the barometric pressure changed, and I rubbed it uncomfortably.

After the meeting, I walked slowly to my workshop, where I started to work on the alloy for the arc reactor engine, trying out a small amount to make sure I could make it work. It was fiddly; the chromium didn't want to do what I wanted it to do, but it was pretty easy work, all in all. I wasn't supposed to do heavy work for awhile.

I slapped my hand on the bench in irritation, which is when I realized that I wasn't alone. Steve and Tony had come in at some point. "So what's up, Emma?" Tony said, no conversational lead up.

"You'll have to be more specific," I said, irritated.

"What's this, and were you going to tell anybody?" Steve held up the bracelet from the clinic. Shit. I thought I'd put that away. I looked around the end of the bench to the little bag that held my stuff from my brief stay. Steve looked mad. "I am still the team leader," he reminded me.

"I'm still on medical leave for my shoulder and arm," I said coolly. "Everything will be fine by the time the physio clears me to return to active missions." I'd counted on it, timed the surgery for it.

"Yeah, but what happened?" Tony said, crowding me. I glared at him and shoved. The motion caused me to twist, and I grimaced.

"You tell me right now what happened or I'm calling the clinic to come get you," Steve barked and I stared at him with dislike.

"They did this to me," I said pointedly. When his face didn't change, I doled out a little more information. "I had a procedure. I stayed overnight, and I'm cleared to be up and around as long as I take it easy for a couple of weeks."

"Fine, but what was it?" Tony pressed.

"I had a hysterectomy."

The boys stepped back from me like it was contagious. I shook my head. Boys.

"That's not minor!" Steve snapped.

"It is, these days," I shot back.

Tony was tapping on his phone. I bet he was Googling it. "Three to six weeks, Harrington," he said. "That's not a couple of weeks."

"It was done laproscopically, so the recovery time is less. They also have an instrument that stimulates tissue growth, which further cuts down the waiting time."

Tony looked at me suspiciously. "Never heard of that."

"You wouldn't. It doesn't have FDA approval yet." And that caused another firestorm.

Finally, I whacked a piece of metal on the bench to shut them up. "Knock it off," I growled. "You're both acting like I'm an idiot child. May I remind you, I'm an adult woman. My medical treatment is between me and my doctor, and no one else gets a vote. I discussed this extensively with her as other treatments for the fibroids failed. I gave informed consent to the use of the device and was thoroughly briefed." I thought about the piles of studies I'd plowed through and shuddered. "It's not far off from being submitted to the FDA and the science is sound."

"You trust too much in science." This came, surprisingly, from Tony.

"No," I said in exasperation. "It's not like this is a doohicky that they just whomped up. It has a proven track record, and my participation in their current study will be very helpful. The risks are low and side effects minimal, the benefits substantial."

"You're not actually a lab rat, no matter what you call yourself," Steve bit off.

"This is how progress is made!" I said loudly. Then I cooled off. "Your opinions are noted. My treatment will continue as planned." You could practically see the ice forming in the workshop. It wasn't going to be pleasant; I could expect discomfort as the healing accelerated cell activity and ultrasounds would be done each treatment to gauge success, both vaginally and from the outside. The vaginal ultrasounds sucked. 

"You should have told me. Us." This came from Tony, but Steve also had a look on his face. It looked like betrayal, which was ridiculous. Neither of them got a say, they didn't own me.

"I'm entitled to my privacy. Would you be telling the group if you had a testicle removed?" Steve scowled. I scowled back.

Tony changed tracks. "Look. We'll shut up about it if you stay in your room in the residence for a few nights. Just in case there's a complication, the clinic is closer." When I hesitated, he pressed, "I'll ask Wanda or Natasha to go to your house for some things. I won't go myself, so you don't have to worry about me going through your underwear." Like this was a huge concession. I rubbed my face. Sometimes my friends were so weird.

"Come on, Emma," Steve said gently, and I looked at him through my fingers before giving my face a final rub and dropped my hands. "You can just say you're working late in here or whatever if anybody says anything."

Tony plucked the technical drawing from my benchtop. "The arc reactor engine. Yeah, you should be working late on this. I want to start trials." He dropped his arm over my shoulders. I closed my eyes and prayed for patience.

But I was tired. The surgery had taken more out of me than I'd thought it would, and I didn't really have the energy to argue. "Fine," I said, after a pause. "Just be sure to bring the dogs' stuff."

"You'll need to take it easy," Steve said.

"I've got a cot in here," I said. "I can take a nap if I need to."

Tony snorted. "That thing is from the middle ages. If you don't go to the residence and rest periodically, I'm bringing a golf cart down and I will fetch you." I opened my mouth to yell, but I saw the concern in his eyes and toned it down.

"I will rest when I need to," I promised, and amazingly, they let it go.

The next morning when I went to my workshop, I had a surprise waiting for me. It had been a rougher night than I wanted to admit to, and ultimately I'd had to sleep sitting up because it was too hard to get up from a prone position. It hadn't been terribly restful. In the corner, down by the concealed cabinet that held my suits, was a new squishy leather recliner and a small table. I sat down cautiously; it was very comfortable but not so soft that it would take a big effort to get out of and the leather was soft and distressed. Even better, the reclining mechanism was activated by leaning back or pressing the feet down, but there was also a lever which would be very helpful while I waited for my abdominals to heal. I tried it out. Geeze, it was nice. I was going to sleep here tonight. I'd have to thank Tony. I had just gotten a small crucible of metal and mineral powders prepared for melting when the door opened and he walked in.

"This is nice," he said, sinking into the chair.

I frowned. "Didn't you do it?"

"Nope," he said, stretching out. "It was Cap. I may never leave. My contribution is there." He gestured vaguely to the bench. I had to open a few drawers and things before I got to the big cupboard at the end that I didn't really use. It was now filled with a small refrigerator, which was stocked with orange juice, some snacks, and milk. The drawer on the bottom had glasses and plates, a blender and a powder for nutritional shakes. "Dr Carol was most helpful in making recommendations for you."

"Thank you," I said. It was kind of hard to get out. I was actually grateful, but it was still kind of irritating that they'd been so high handed in my workshop, my haven.

"Bet that hurt," he said, keeping his eyes shut.

"Little bit," I admitted after a moment, and he chuckled. He actually did take a nap. I shook my head and took the crucible to the forge. It didn't take long to melt, and in a few minutes I poured out a little puddle of metal about an inch in diameter, a few millimeters thick. I pulled up a stool as I monitored the atomic alignment as the metal cooled. I became aware of someone breathing down my neck, so I went back to normal vision and turned around.

Steve loomed. I stepped sideways. "Thank you for the chair," I said. It was easier to get out the second time. Steve looked over at Tony, still sprawled and napping, and sighed.

"Kick him out when you need to take a break. Be sure you keep up hydration and nutrient intake," he instructed. I repressed a sigh. He's trying to be helpful. I held up my fingers in a Girl Scout pledge. He rooted in the drawer and got out the blender and nutritional powder. Tony drifted over as the blender whirred. Steve poured it out. It looked good, an appetizing brown color like chocolate, thick and creamy like a milkshake. They watched me as I took an enthusiastic swig.

I gagged violently at the taste and I may have drooled a bit in disgust. I stared reproachfully at Steve through watering eyes. 

"It can't be that bad," he said, and he and Tony tried it. Steve swallowed it masochistically and made a face, but Tony spat it out and scraped frantically at his tongue. Steve picked up the powder container and read the ingredient list.

"Why?" Tony asked after rinsing with water. "Why would they do that to anybody?" My stomach was still churning.

"Well, have a snack instead," Steve said, finding a plate of veggies and cheeses. I crunched down a nice juicy carrot to get the taste out of my mouth. The powder container was pitched into the garbage. Steve washed out the blender. I wouldn't have been a bit surprised to see it dissolve in the shake sludge. My pad chimed and it was time for my treatment with the healing device. Steve and Tony walked me up to the clinic.

I went to lunch after the treatment. Natasha and Wanda were waiting for me. They let me sit down before pouncing. "So--what are you doing at the clinic?" Natasha asked casually, crunching into a celery stick.

Wanda was more direct. "Steve and Tony are unusually attentive to you. Are you pregnant and not know which is the father? I thought you weren't going to get involved with Tony."

As I choked, Natasha gasped and ooohed. "You naughty girl!"

I smiled a bit, but I had to get this straight before it went out of control. "No, it's not that at all." I hesitated. "I had a procedure done lately is all and they're hovering."

Wanda's fork paused on the way to her mouth. "What kind of procedure? We can keep a secret," she assured me, and I sighed. It wasn't much of a secret anymore.

"Hysterectomy."

Natasha's fork clattered on her plate and then she patted my hand. "Did you want kids?" she asked practically.

"No, not really," I said honestly. "But there's something about no longer having the option is all. It would be very hard for a hero to have a kid. They'd always be in danger." Natasha nodded grimly, but Wanda was stricken; it looked like she hadn't thought of that.

There was a bit of a pause, and a few questions, like if they'd left my ovaries and a discussion about the accelerated healing device. They were also a little doubtful about me using the device. "Next time you're hurt, you'll thank me for my contribution to proper evaluation of it," I said, poking my fork at Natasha. "It won't before they're using it routinely." We lingered over lunch, then we strolled to the team meeting.


	37. An interesting challenge

I hated to admit it, but the hysterectomy wasn't as minor as I'd thought it would be and tried to pass it off as. Natasha finally confided that she'd been sterilized as part of her training and knew what I was going through. In sisterly solidarity, she didn't say anything in front of the boys but she made a point of dropping by for the first week to make sure I wasn't over exerting. In turn, I restricted work to what I could do with my power, and cut way back on that. The energy for that had to come from somewhere, and my body had a hard time both healing and working. I took a lot of naps, curled under blankets Natasha had brought from my home. The dogs didn't like it because they couldn't cuddle with me, but they were good pups.

I woke one evening to find Tony and Steve staring at me. I jumped. "You look so angelic when you sleep," Tony observed, putting a tray on the side table. "So noncombative." I was in the middle of a yawn, so all I could do was glare. Then I turned to the tray, which had the caf's house salad, meatloaf with mashed potatoes, and a pile of steamed vegetables.

"Oh, yum," I said, and dived in. Tony watched, kind of appalled at the quantity of food I was putting away, but mutations and healing use energy like nobody's business. Steve was used to it; his contribution was to make me drink a glass of milk after. I felt better than I had for days afterward. I'd slept most of the afternoon and missed the mail delivery; but when I got up, I found that Con had sent me a box of chocolates from an exclusive New York chocolatier, packed in a box with ice packs to make sure the chocolate didn't bloom. I plucked a fat truffle out of the assortment and turned for the chair.

"What are you doing?" Steve said, shocked, knocking the truffle away after I'd taken a bite.

"What the hell, Steve?" I asked in shock. Tony picked it up and started to laugh.

"It's chocolate," he said, chortling.

Steve flushed. "Usually you're only that happy about a box when it has metal samples or something." 

I looked at him in outrage and went back for another one, sidestepping him neatly. "So much better tasting than cobalt. You owe me a truffle," I said as I sat back down, guarding the chocolate jealously. Tony looked through the offerings and chose a macadamia nut cluster. Why had Con sent that one? She knows I don't like them. Maybe she expected me to share. It's like she doesn't know me at all sometimes.

After they had left, I puttered around some more, then made an early night of it. That episode sort of turned the corner for me; I started feeling better, had more energy, and the ultrasounds showed that my healing was progressing quickly. By the second week's end, I was back at home at nights and doing real work. I felt at about 96%, and the physio was able to start working on the muscles below my pecs. By the end of the third week, the physio released me for normal training, and he and Steve made a plan for getting me back into shape. I wasn't part of that conversation, or I might never have returned to campus.

Bucky eased me back into weapons work with my fans. He'd done some research and had me work on being aggressive in my attacks with them. To my relief, I never managed to really hurt him. I'd come to really value him as a person and a friend, so that was good, but in training, he became the Winter Soldier, and he never tolerated anything less than my best effort. But he was so highly skilled and trained that the most I managed to do was to rake Martha's edge across his face. He was surprised, but it healed almost instantly. He also studied the urumi to see if he could train me to use it better, but I flatly refused to face off with him. The image of Crossbones on the floor kept intruding, and Bucky didn't push it for once. Maybe he was still freaked out. He stood well out of range and made corrections from a distance. I'd seen a halberd in the Met when we were there for the photos that was really beautiful and made my own version of it. It had a smaller blade, a longer, solid pike--blood and tissue were easier to clean off--and I sharpened both the exterior and interior curves of the hook. The pole was metal this time; I wasn't going to chance having somebody else breaking them again. I actually made two of them, identical, one sharpened and one not. I used the unsharpened version with Bucky so I could go against him full out without worrying about hurting him accidentally.

"You don't have to worry about that," he said patiently one day. "I'm better at this than you are."

"That's true," I acknowledged, "but anybody can get lucky. And I'm getting better." I was, too. Bucky was starting to have to work a little.

Steve, however, did not ease me into the obstacle course or gym at all. It was more of a dropkick. I'd have suspected that he was taking hurt feelings out on me, but once again he was running the course with me, encouraging me until I finally finished. It was--almost--impossible to hate him for it. But resentment was pretty easy and kept me going. Although it wasn't as bad as the very first time he worked with me, I still had a lot of hot baths with Epsom salts. I thought a lot of bad words but I didn't put money in the swear jar for them. The sudden increase in funds would have been quite remarkable, and a person should be entitled to the privacy of her own thoughts. We didn't live in _1984._.

Thor still hadn't come back, and Sif was worried. She went back to Asgard as well and didn't return.

The first inking we had that things were going sideways happened when I was in Seattle. I was in the historic district of Pioneer Square, bringing in a suit for alteration and visiting Assemblage, Designs by Ferdod, the antiques stores (I still had some space in my house to furnish, plus the attic), and specialty stores like Rain Shadow Meats to stock up. I was having a cocktail in E Smith Mercantile when I heard a couple of customers talking about an old weird guy by the Waterfall Garden Park.

"He actually thinks Ragnarok is happening," one man snorted.

"He sounds like a Shakespearean actor," the other said. "I hope they cure dementia before I get that old." That piqued my interest, and I left the last of my drink to see what was happening before the police arrived.

Just outside the park, an old man with stringy, long gray hair was hunched over and rocking. He was indeed mumbling about Ragnarok. I gasped when I saw the remains of leather armor under the blanket around his shoulder, which brought his gaze up to me. I looked him in the eyes. Eye, actually.

I called Nick immediately. "We have a problem," I said in a low voice. "Odin is here in Seattle. He looks like a bum and seems to be suffering from some kind of mental health issue. We need to pick him up and find out what's going on." After I hung up, I crouched down beside him and began talking to him. At first he didn't seem to register me, but after a bit, he looked at me again.

"Lady Emma," he croaked. Just then the police arrived. It turns out that it's not that easy to convince the police that your great uncle wandered off, being a little batshit crazy and thinking that he's a Norse god and that you're trying to round him up and take him back to his caregiver.

Fortunately, as I was losing the battle, an ambulance pulled up. I didn't recognize the paramedics who popped out and approached us, but I did recognize the driver. Phil opened the driver's side door and followed. "Ms Harrington," he acknowledged, and I turned to try to calm Odin, who was not pleased to have two strangers trying to take physical custody of him. Finally they hit him with a sedative and placed him on a gurney. As I watched them wheel Odin to the ambulance, I saw his two immense ravens in the nearest tree.

"Ms Harrington," Phil said politely, as the police turned to leave, "do you want to ride in the ambulance or is your car nearby?"

"I'll drive," I said. "I'll meet you at the...facility." He nodded pleasantly, then smiled and asked me to wait. He trotted off to the ambulance and brought me back a Starbucks mocha. Despite the situation, I laughed. Then I hurried to my car. The ravens met me there and seemed determined that I would give them a ride. I opened the back door and they arrowed in. I hoped that their intelligence meant that I wouldn't have to clean the upholstery when I got home.

When I got back to the campus, the gate guard looked askance at my passengers but asked no questions. For their part, aside from some rustling, they had been silent on the drive. When I opened the door, they flew out and aimed toward the clinic. I got a text from Nick to meet in the conference room. Natasha, Steve, Tony, Wanda, Vision, Sam, Jim, and Bucky were waiting as I stepped into the room. "We're waiting for one more," Nick said, and I detoured to the sideboard and put a K-cup into the coffee maker. Somebody's indrawn breath alerted me when Phil arrived. I finished adding cream and sugar and turned to see Natasha giving him a heartfelt hug before letting go and slapping him. I think she might have been around me too long. She sat down without saying a word, but there were tears in her eyes. Bucky took her hand.

As Phil sat down, I placed the coffee in front of him and squeezed his shoulder in support before sitting down myself. Steve still looked a little betrayed and Tony a bit pissed. "Agent Coulson, could you recap the events of today?" Nick asked. Sam looked confused.

"I thought SHIELD was gone," he said.

"Not quite," Phil said.

"That explanation can wait," Nick said, and Phil began with the call I'd made. When asked, I repeated the conversation I'd heard in the store, and Phil went on to detail the ride back and Odin's admission to the clinic.

"And that's really Odin?" Steve asked doubtfully. "Thor's dad?"

"Without question," I said, frowning. "He recognized me for a moment. Perhaps more importantly at this time, his ravens did too. This makes me afraid that something bad is happening in Asgard. Thor would never do that to his father. If he could," I said slowly. "I think Odin was quite a bit more powerful than Thor the last time I saw them together."

"Hugin and Munin found you?" Phil asked, and I nodded.

"Gave them a lift here. I don't know the nature of their relationship, what having familiars entails," I told Nick, "but I would like you to request that after Odin is settled in that he be given a room with a window that opens. Maybe his ravens can help out with his mental state." Nick nodded and pulled out his phone to text.

"OK. Harrington, I want you to go to the clinic and see what's going on."

"Right. I'd also like to talk to Loki." Nick nodded.

"Jim, Sam, Wanda, I want you to go into Seattle, see if you can find out any information about Odin's appearance, how long he's been there, anything." Then he nodded toward the door, and those of us with tasks left. I personally didn't care to be in the room as some hurt Avengers confronted Phil.

"Emma," Bucky called, and I turned to wait for him. "I don't feel the need to be in there." As we went down the stairs, I could see vision also leaving the room. Bucky accompanied me to the clinic, where we were directed upstairs and to a different area, one I'd never been in.

"Ms Harrington, you're cleared to see the patient, but I'm afraid you're the only one who is," the nurse at the desk said.

"I'll wait here," Bucky said, and dropped into a chair. The nurse looked a little nervous as she went back to her computer, and I opened the door. Behind it was a short hallway with a few doors, and a doctor was exiting one of the doors, writing on a pad. He looked up when I spoke, then gestured me to follow him back into the room.

"The patient was brought in sedated; we cleaned him up, and he's been docile, has the delusion that he's Odin."

"He's not deluded," I said. "That's really Thor's dad, so please treat him with respect. Also, he has some raven familiars, so if one or both shows up at the window, please let them in." Dr Staley stared at me.

"You're kidding."

"Afraid not. They seem to be housebroken, though." I looked at Odin, who was watching this without recognition, and crossed to the window, opening it and removing the screen. As if it were a signal, the two enormous ravens emerged from the trees and I stepped back. They settled on the foot board, rustling, then regarded Odin for long moments. One of them squawked imperiously, but Odin didn't respond. They muttered to each other briefly before flying out again. I closed the window and turned back to Odin.

"Odin Borson, do you recognize me?" I asked him gently. His eyes searched my face.

"No." He looked frustrated.

"This is Dr Staley," I introduced him. "He will be helping you to recover and remember." Odin's hand shot out and grabbed my wrist.

"Ragnarok is coming," he said intensely.

I wasn't quite sure what to say. "You've delivered the warning," I said finally. "Rest now." His hand released its grip, and the doctor accompanied me outside.

"We need to find out what brought him to this world and why he's not still on Asgard," I said, and he nodded.

"We'll do what we can," he promised.

"I have access to his other son," I said slowly. "Would it be ok to bring him for a look? He might have some insight."

Dr Staley apparently didn't know who Odin's other son was, because he nodded without reservation. "We can arrange a visit," he said cautiously, "and take it from there." He nodded, more firmly. I nodded, then collected Bucky. We went to visit Loki. I had no idea what to expect.

Loki looked up as we walked in. There'd been an issue at the scanner with Bucky's metal arm, but I pointed out that he was an Avenger, after all, and he'd been allowed to come through. Bucky looked around curiously; he'd never come down. Loki was lounging elegantly, reading a book.

"I'm sorry to barge in," I said as he looked up and smiled.

"You're never interrupting," he said, and looked at Bucky. I made the introduction, neither of them looked terribly impressed with the other. I repressed a sigh. Everybody seemed to dislike Loki except for Thor and me. Granted, there were reasons, but still.

"We have a problem, and I want to inform you about certain events." Loki put down the book and crossed his cell to look at me. "In a nutshell, Thor took off awhile ago to go to Asgard. He hasn't returned or sent word, which isn't unusual, but Sif got worried and also returned. There hasn't been any communication, and she knew we were starting to be concerned. Then, today, Odin was found on a street corner in the city. He's been living rough for awhile. He recognized me for a moment, but not since. He keeps talking about Ragnarok."

Loki's mobile face changed from curiosity to unconcern to concern, then alarm. "This isn't good," he said.

"Didn't think so." I paused. "Look, would you be willing to see Odin? If I could get guarantees from you that you wouldn't try to escape, I might be able to convince Nick. And of course, a promise that you would not try to harm Odin while you were there." I rubbed my wrist thoughtfully. "He's still quite strong."

"Events may be occurring which will eclipse my...differences with Odin and Thor if Odin is correct," Loki said thoughtfully. "I would be willing to agree to any conditions you personally feel are necessary to gain an audience with my... with Odin."

He seemed sincere. I chewed the inside of my cheek briefly, then nodded. "I'll go talk to Nick."


	38. The approach of dread

"What can you tell me about Ragnarok?" I asked. "This afternoon is the first I've heard of it."

Loki nodded toward the comfy chair. "You should have a seat."

Bucky brought it closer to the cell for me and went out for a second chair. When we were both settled, Loki began to pace. His face was calm and untroubled, but he still gave the impression of a high state of agitation.

"'It sates itself on the life-blood of fated men, paints red the powers' homes with crimson gore. Black become the sun's beams in the summers that follow, weathers all treacherous. Do you still seek to know? And what?'" Loki said. I actually felt my skin crawl, and that's no easy feat.

"What is that?" I asked.

"It's from an epic poem. I believe it was even left on Midgard after we withdrew. It tells of a volva, a female shaman or seer, talking to Odin."

"A seer? That doesn't sound too bad," Bucky said.

"A volva is not a woman to take lightly," Loki said tightly. "They are powerful enough that my father, mighty Odin himself, consulted them to find his fate. Their weapons are not the sword or axe but the wand, by which they influence battle, and their magic. They are elderly women, who have seen much and have great knowledge, with retinues of younger people to assist them. They have released themselves from the bonds of family and have great authority. The better they are at their craft, the more they are to be respected and heeded. And feared." He shuddered. "They can bind or free men, physically, using magic and a loom. They spin the fates of men and gods and heroes, the most skilled of their kind, peace-weavers who decide when wars are to be made. They can influence fertility. Dangerous women, skilled in seduction and craft."

"So Ragnarok is a prophesy?" I asked, and Loki nodded.

"'Brothers will fight and kill each other, sisters' children will defile kinship. It is harsh in the world, whoredom rife—an axe age, a sword age—shields are riven—a wind age, a wolf age—before the world goes headlong. No man will have mercy on another.'"

"What happens after?" I said in a small voice.

"Well, it's not all doom and gloom, I suppose. The gods will die and worlds drown, but afterward the water will recede, the land will be fresh and fertile, surviving gods will reunite, and the realms repopulated by a pair of people." He laughed brittlely. "Odin and Thor and I are among those not fated to see it. Mighty Heimdall takes the first action. 'I know of the horn of Heimdall, hidden under the high-reaching holy tree; on it there pours from Valfather's pledge a mighty stream: would you know yet more?' Then later, it says, 'Fast move the sons of Mim and fate is heard in the note of the Gjallarhorn; loud blows Heimdall, the horn is aloft, in fear quake all who on Hel-roads are.'"

"This seems to be rather hard to decipher," I said cautiously.

"We have had long ages to parse it," Loki allowed. "There is a well of wisdom under the roots of Yggdrasil, the world tree that passes through the nine realms. Drink from it and wisdom is yours, but the price is steep; Odin sacrificed his eye to do so. Heimdall is said to sacrifice an ear, which obviously he has not done." He pondered this. " I do not know if he has been to the well yet or not. But when the enemies of Asgard gather on the plains of Vigrior, Heimdall will stand and blow the horn, summoning the gods. Yggdrasil will shudder, causing fear in all beings, and the gods will don their war gear and advance to Vigrior. Odin, clad in golden mail and helmet and carrying Gungnir his spear, will battle the great wolf Fenrir and both shall die. Freyr shall fall to Surtr, the hound Garmr and Tyr will kill each other. Thor will slay the serpent Jormungandr but will fall to its venom after taking nine steps. Heimdall and I will kill each other, and Surtr will engulf the worlds in fire. The lands will sink beneath water and the sun swallowed whole." Loki's mouth twitches, but it cannot be called a smile. "But the dead shall find homes in places in the afterworld, the earth will reappear green and whole and fertile, the daughter of the sun will appear to follow the same path as her beautiful mother, two gods, Baldur and Hoor, will be released from Hel and meet with Thor's sons Modi and Magni, who inherit Mjolnir. Two humans will survive in wood, drink the morning dew, and repopulate the earth."

"But Thor doesn't have sons," I pointed out blankly.

"That are known to him," Loki says sternly. "But many things do not align with the prophesy. I, for example, am to spend the ages before pinned to rocks with the entrails of my son while a snake drips venom onto my face eternally for engineering the death of Baldur." I blanched, and Loki nodded. "You can see that I prefer your comfortable cell and kind attentions. According to the prophesy, my wife Sigyn gives me relief by collecting the snake's venom in a bowl, but when she empties it I am in agony once more. The signs of Ragnarok are the crowing of three cocks in various locations; following, the hound Garmir will howl and break free. Fimbulwinter, three winters that pass without a summer between them, will be endured, during which great battles will be fought and the sun will be useless. Next, the wolf will swallow the sun and the moon, to the great detriment of men. The stars will disappear and the earth will shake so violently that Fenrir will escape his bindings, and as the seas rise, Jormungandr will be free, spitting venom through the air and sea as they advance. Then from Muspelheim a force will invade, led by Surtr, who will cross the Bifrost and destroy it utterly; the world-breakers will then advance to Vigrior."

Bucky looked up from his smartphone. "The wolf and the snake that Thor is supposed to fight, and other monsters too are supposed to be your children."

Loki rolled his eyes. "Slanders. I am not the most popular god, but siring monstrosities is not possible. I am said to be their father, as in spirit or inspiration." I frowned.

"But Baldur isn't dead," I said slowly. "I met him in conjunction with the dogs."

"And I have taken care to avoid contact with him or marry, or have sons. I have no desire to die, or to see the worlds end," Loki said levelly.

"So either the prophesy is wrong or not all the details are correct," I said, and Loki nodded.

"OK. The first thing to do is to get you in to see Odin," I said, rubbing my head. "I think we need to find out what happened to him." Loki nodded wordlessly. Bucky and I left.

"Do you think this Ragnarok is even possible?" Bucky asked. "It seems pretty farfetched."

"I believe that the Asgardians do," I said after a moment. "We know they have great power. What we don't know is the extent of their power. What if....somebody decides to put it in play? If they provoke situations, pull on strings... Loki said that some of the legend is figurative, the monsters being his sons." I close my eyes. "Loki isn't chained to rocks being tortured, but he is locked up and there is a woman alleviating his boredom. What if that's close enough for that part of the myth? What if rationalizing things make it possible to put events into play?" Bucky and I stopped and looked at each other, then we hurried up to Nick.

It took some doing, but we convinced Nick and soon I was down in Loki's cell, supervising. His hands were chained behind his back with manacles based on the Hulk's, just smaller, and he would be escorted by two guards. Bucky followed him and was comfortable with the idea of shooting Loki if he got out of hand. I went ahead and talked to the doctor; he approved the visit, but was not pleased to see the security on the visitor. I directed him to talk to Nick, and opened the window again. Hugin and Munin flew in as Loki was brought into the room. They cawed at him, sounding remarkably scolding. Loki endured it with compressed lips and narrowed eyes, and abruptly they cut off as Odin stirred. Bird and human eyes trained on him.

His eyes passed over us all with out recognition until they came to Loki. "My son," he said in a thin voice. He reached out a hand; I nodded and Loki was allowed to grasp Odin's hand. "It is coming--you must put aside your hatred and resentment and save--" his voice failed as he went into a series of convulsions. I pushed Loki to the side, then out the door as the medical team rushed in. We stayed in the hall in silence until Dr Staley came out.

"We need some tests to find out what triggered the convulsions," he said without preamble. "Until we have a better understanding of his condition, no more visits. And the birds. Are they really necessary? It's too cold to leave the windows open."

"The ravens are an extension of my father's eyes and will," Loki stated.

"I'll see if I can't get someone posted to watch and open the window only if they approach," I offered, and the doctor nodded reluctantly.

Loki was silent on the way back to the cell and stood patiently to allow his manacles to be removed. He went back in with no fuss, which I hadn't really expected.

"What did you think?" I asked, coming up to the class.

"I do not believe that his condition is a natural deterioration," Loki said. "If was natural, Hugin and Munin would also be agitated and confused, yet they are as steady and observant as ever."

"Ok. That's interesting and could be helpful. What about Ragnarok?"

Loki spread his hands and shrugged elegantly. "He obviously believes the threat approaches. I cannot read minds." His voice bit.

"Thank you for your help," I said, and patted the glass. "I'll keep you up to date." I turned and headed for the door, Bucky at my back.

"I'd hoped for more information," Bucky said as we exited the building.

"Well, it's promising that Odin's condition might have been induced. The question is how and by whom," I pointed out. We went up to Nick's office and reported. Given what Loki had said about their nature, Nick agreed to put a guard in Odin's room, both for protection and as an access point for the birds.

"I don't like this," Nick snapped. "Half-crazed gods showing up, no way to contact the member of my team who might know what is going on."

"If he's still alive," Bucky said suddenly. My head snapped around. He met my eyes. "We don't know anything. That's the problem."

"Oh, shit," Nick said, absently pulling out his wallet and extracting a dollar. "Start thinking about ways to get some information on the situation. Now go on. You both have other things to do too."

"I'd like to be in the guard rotation," I said before I left. "During the day when the birds fly. Maybe just filling in while somebody else has a lunch hour." Nick considered this and nodded.

"At lunch, then. I'll put you on the schedule." I walked out and down to the workshop. I had plenty of work waiting. A chill wind blew and I shivered. Three consecutive winters hadn't happened here, in what the Asgardians called Midgard, or in Asgard. But there were seven other realms...


	39. We go sleuthing

For the next few days, nothing exciting happened. Odin fell into a catatonic state that Loki categorically denied was the Odinsleep. Too bad; at least when he came out of that his strength was renewed. The ravens still didn't seem too upset, though.

Change came on a different front. Natasha had gone out to shake some information out of a few people, and after Loki's encounter with his father, Bucky left to join her. When they came back, they had the location of Viper.

Amazingly, we wouldn't even have to go far. She was somewhere in Alexandria, Virginia. Her proximity to the nation's capital was a matter of some concern, especially since nobody could find her exact location or what she was there for. Bucky and Natasha were very recognizable and notorious; their ability to scout around was unfortunately limited.

"We need to send in people who aren't known or well-known," Natasha said bluntly. "It's the only way we'll get the information."

I met Bucky's eyes across the table; his expression was grim. "I volunteer," I said crisply. "I'd also like to volunteer Sam, Scott, and Peter, provided we can come up with a pretext that won't set off his aunt." I wanted Sam to go for his knowledge of the DC area, his planning abilities, and his strength. Scott would be awesome to have because he's so friendly and outgoing nobody would ever think he was a superhero, plus there's the advantage of his suit. Peter's got enhanced hearing, his 'spider sense', and his webcrawling abilities, and his youth makes him less threatening. Steve and Tony looked like they wanted to kick up a fuss; Nick hastily accepted. After a pro forma sputter about how if he wanted to be volunteered, he'd have stayed in the military, Sam agreed to go. Nick said he'd contact Scott and Peter, and Tony reluctantly said he'd come up with an invitation for Peter to observe Stark Tech lobbyists, or something. Natasha copied Sam and me on the file on Viper, sadly thin. They had managed to get a photograph of the woman, which was helpful and was the only one known to exist. Tall, very curvy, and with dark hair that fell over her face like Veronica Lake, she had a memorable appearance. Natasha and Bucky had suggestions for places to look and what we should be looking for, while Nick started planning with the others; we would be going in first, followed in a few days by the others so that if we could find Viper, we could immediately act.

As soon as we had a pretty good plan, Nick dismissed Sam and me to go pack. We'd be flying on one of Tony's private jets; the others would come in on the quinjet and bring our suits. I detoured to the clinic first with Sigurd and Torburn. As usual, the ravens arrived at the window when I entered the room, and I let them in, dismissing the guard for a break.

I explained briefly that I would be absent for a time due to another mission. "I'm sure you'd castigate me for diverting my attention during a crucial period," I said to Odin wryly, then looking at the birds too. I'm not quite sure how Odin gets the information from the birds, just that he does, and I wanted to be sure to include everybody. "But the simple fact is that we don't know what's happening in Asgard and we have no way of getting there. But these are smaller problems, suitable for less-important people," I said, smiling faintly. "They're the ones I can do something about, anyway. So I won't be able to visit for a bit, but I'll be sure to let the doctor know I'm to be notified immediately if anything happens." I looked at the dogs. "I'd like you to visit here as well. I'll feel better knowing you're here." Sigurd woofed once. Torburn was quite young still, but I trusted his dad to keep him out of trouble. I stopped at Dr Staley's office to let him know about the change of plans and that the dogs would be coming and going, went downstairs to let Loki know I had to leave, then went to the caf to ask a couple of the employees there to keep an eye out for the dogs so that they'd be fed. I didn't like leaving them on their own, but I needed them here. Then we hustled back to the house so I could pack and down to the workshop so that I could pull my suit and weapons. I couldn't take my new poleaxe on the street, but I could take the knives, fans, and urumi; I had a new winter coat with a sheath in the belt. I left the suit and poleaxe for the others to bring with them and after hugging the dogs, hustled to the airstrip.

The flight was uneventful; Sam and I played Go Fish for most of all. It was quite a heated competition. We had reservations at a hotel near the areas we wanted to focus on first; nice but modest for two tourists who were looking to explore the historic capital and suburbs. Sam went to rent a car, just in case, and I took the hotel's shuttle van. I checked in, scanned the room just to be sure everything was fine--I was a little paranoid on this mission, sue me--and checked in with Nick. We still had a little daylight, so when Sam showed up at his room across the hall, he dumped his stuff and we went out. We looked at the neighborhoods that Natasha and Bucky had identified, and Sam added a couple more to the list based on his knowledge. We got dinner, then walked around one of the least likely sites. We saw nothing related to Viper, but it was kind of a long shot anyway. Back at the hotel, we divided up our targets for faster preliminary results. We wanted to have information for when the rest of the team showed up.

The next morning, we got up early and went for a run around the Tidal Basin; where Sam used to go and where he'd first met Steve. "This is an awesome change from the obstacle course," I puffed as we ran. Sam laughed. When Sam was hailed by an acquaintance of his from his days working at the VA, I said we'd catch up later and went on. It was a lovely run, and completely free from mud pits, tall walls, and hurdles. I couldn't believe my luck.

After my run, I went back to the hotel, showered, and grabbed some breakfast on my way to the first neighborhood. At this hour of the morning, cars with adults on their way to work after dropping off the kids were prevalent, and it seemed unlikely that a supervillain would set up shop here. It was always possible, of course, but there seemed to be enough people who knew each other, waving as they passed each other, looking at me curiously, that I thought someone who kept to themselves would stand out. And so far Viper hadn't been seen on any security footage.

That night, Sam and I ordered a pizza as we discussed what we'd seen and heard. A knock on the door, and Scott and Peter arrived; they were on different floors than Sam and I. We brought them up to date and discussed our next moves. Tony had come up with an image from a traffic camera near GMU, so Peter was going to go on campus with Sam, as Peter looked like a freshman. Sam would be looking around at the area off-campus, but would be around if Peter needed backup. Scott would accompany me to neighborhoods where we wanted a second look. We also decided to keep our distance from Sam in public; he had a lot of acquaintances still in the area and while his face wasn't nearly as well known as some of the other Avengers, he might be a little too high profile.

The next morning, I checked out the Capital Crescent Trail, sticking to the paved portion, a rare treat. I did a fist pump at the lack of horrible surprises on the path, and it wasn't too crowded. A few hard-core runners, red-faced, checking the trackers on their wrists or their pulses, even fewer more casual runners like me. I was actually alone at one point by Dalecarlia Reservoir. Then a disciplined runner bounded by, a tall woman, hair scraped back into a severe ponytail, the right side of her face horribly scarred. Then more traffic, including a couple of kids on skateboarders, a biker going way too fast and clipping my shoulder with a handlebar, and a scary-intense guy with a thin, wiry build like a marathoner, reciting goals and encouraging phrases, and I turned off the path. Back at the hotel, I met up with Scott. He hadn't gone running, but then, he didn't have to deal with Captain freaking America and his passion for cardio.

We walked through neighborhoods in Arlington, first of all; I used my souped-up vision spectrum to determine where the houses with external security cameras were, and Scott shrunk down when we were out of range. Then as we passed our first target house, he hopped out of my pocket and I kept walking. I made our rendezvous point, a MacDonalds, and popped in for a bite. When Scott came in, he just shook his head. After we'd both eaten, we went onto the next target, repeat. Steve would have a whole big cow if he saw all the junk I was eating. I finished my apple pie a little guiltily, but not beset enough to throw it away.

We finished up around three, then went to the National Cemetery and watched the guards change at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers. Pete joined us about halfway through, sitting in front of us, and Sam showed up toward the end. His eyes were red, so I deduced he'd stopped on his way to pay his respects to fallen comrades and didn't comment. We were in Alexandria in time to catch people coming home, eliminating a few more targets that way. For dinner, we went to a high-volume IHOP. Scott and picked at our dinners as we checked our phones. Peter and Sam ate heartily. Tony had come up with another image that looked like Viper on campus. Peter was going to have to go back. Something about the woman tugged at my memory, but for once I couldn't put my finger on it. Odin was still catatonic, Thor hadn't made contact, same old same old. After Sam and Peter had finished, I went with Peter to GMU and Scott and Sam took over in Alexandria. We'd discuss when we got back to the hotel.

Peter and I wandered around the campus in the fading light, but we didn't see the building in the pictures. Peter looked up the university website and said a bad word under his breath. "We need to go to the Fairfax campus," he said under his breath, showing me a professional photo of the building.

"What is it?" I asked softly.

"The Center for Clean Water and Sustainable Technology," he said. "The primary focus is to find chemical and biochemical ways to obtain clean water.... sustainability issues involve techniques to detect chemical toxins and pathogenic species of bacteria and viruses, find environmentally sound ways of removing them..."

"We need to go to Fairfax," I agreed, and we turned for the car. We took the beltway, then over to Fairfax. The building was secured for the night, but there was no doubt that this was where the woman resembling Viper had been photographed. As we stood outside the doors, looking at the website again and making plans to visit when the building was open, a tired-looking man exited, hesitated and came up to us.

"I'm sorry to interrupt," he said, "But I couldn't help overhear what you were saying. Are you interested in studying here?"

I smiled. "I am, actually. I have a Masters in materials science but I've recently developed an interest in water quality. With climate change, I think it's going to be a real issue in the near future."

"That's very interesting," he said, and asked me a few questions about my education. "I"m the program director here," he mentioned, and offered us a tour. I introduced Peter as my son, and the director kindly spoke to him a bit before escorting us in. Forty-five minutes later, we parted in the parking lot. I knew the floor plan of the building, including the locations of the labs, a list of the professors and their areas of specialization, how many students studied there and what their theses were. We hustled back to the hotel.

There was backslapping and hugs as we related our information, and the excellent news that Scott and Sam believed they'd found the lair of our villain in light of our findings. Scott had seen maps of the DC area, pages of chemical formulae, and a vial of a translucent light green substance. He hadn't had time to get into the safe, as it featured a biometric lock that would take time to defeat. We got on the phone for a quiet conference with the team back in Seattle. Something about the latest photograph we had was bothering me, and I pulled it up again.

This time the memory clicked. "I saw this woman. This morning, on my run!" I broke in, and for a second there was dead silence, then a flare of questions. "By the Dalecarlia Reservoir," I said. "Her hair was back in a ponytail and her face, the right side, is really scarred. That must be the reason she wears her hair down."

Tony's voice broke in. "That reservoir is the primary storage for DC's water supply."

Things just became a lot more clear, in a scary way. The team was coming out immediately.


	40. Collecting information. All sorts.

I went to my room to get a couple hours' sleep. I knew that when everybody got here we'd be planning into the night. And so it was; when the rest of the team arrived, we went over to their hotel and inconspicuously went upstairs. Tony had gotten the team suites, with his being the largest and with a table we could all crowd around. The 3D projector was already up and displaying information on the degree program. I recited the information I'd gotten from the chairman and Tony added that.

"That reservoir has a lot of security, but it's not that difficult to hack," he said. "The physical security is better, but if somebody just doesn't care if they survive, they can be taken out too." The house was discussed and we decided we needed to get somebody in there to take some pictures and crack the safe. We also wanted a better idea of the physical plant of the reservoir.

"What would go into making some sort of poison for a water supply? What would it have to do, physically?" Steve asked. Tony and I looked at each other.

"Well, the first thing would, obviously, be that it's water soluble," Tony said, but there was no snark in the statement.

"We need to see those formulas," I said. "If the compounds aren't polar, then there's either no risk or it's not our project. Only polar compounds dissolve in water." Steve looked a little confused but took our word for it.

"Quantity would probably be another issue," Peter spoke up a little tentatively. "The less that is needed, the better. Less risk of getting caught than if you need twenty kegs of the stuff." I nodded.

"Right. And taste, odor, appearance. If you want somebody to use it, it can't look off."

"How it is manufactured depends on what equipment is needed and what quantity," Tony said thoughtfully.

"It has to be resistant to UV and thermally pretty stable," I said, thinking hard. "It's going to be in water for awhile before it gets to the consumer, which means that it will be exposed to sunlight and a range of temperatures."

"As for what it does, we just can't speculate. It might be just an outright poison, something to cause illness, or an attempt at a mutagen," Tony said.

"It would be a total crapshoot to seriously think you can cause wide-spread mutation through water," I disagreed. "The digestive system is really robust. The most successful mutations come from insect bites or radiation, chemicals, medical procedures. Anything that bypasses the GI tract, really."

"But it can't be ruled out completely," Tony said glumly. "Anybody can get lucky." I had to nod at that. 

"It might not be meant for consumption," Peter spoke up suddenly. "What about showering, washing your hair, your clothes, brushing your teeth?"

"That is very possible," Tony said and I agreed.

"That is not as helpful as I'd hoped," Steve sighed, and I shrugged apologetically.

"We really need to see those formulas," I repeated. "More than see, actually. We need to study them."

"Right," said Steve. "I'll put it on the list." I looked at him sharply.

"It's not a matter of intellectual curiosity," I said, and he nodded.

"I understand, Emma. It's just that there are a lot of things we need to nail down and not much time. Tony, who owns that house?"

"One Anna Smith," Tony said. "Most likely a cover identity. I'm tracing funds and IDs."

"Well, that's a Smith," I said. Tony smirked.

"We'll have to know more before we can conflate our Smith with this one. Pretty common name." I raised my eyes heavenward briefly.

"Is there any big event coming up? I mean, there are the holidays, but Thanksgiving isn't til next month, over a month away," Scott asked.

"Good question," Steve said, and Sam hit the internet.

"Not for the general public," he said after a few minutes. "The president is hosting the UK Prime Minister next week for a summit along with leaders from Scotland, Wales, and Ireland who are agitating for their independence in the wake of Brexit, though."

"The global economy is remarkably...responsive to tremors out of the UK," Tony said. "Yeah, Anna Smith is a fiction, at least currently; the one attached to this social security number died in 1942 from old age. The property was most recently purchased a little over three months ago."

"OK," Steve said. "We probably have a little time. Tony, I want the real identity of this woman and ideas about her confederates. No way anybody does this on their own. Scott, I want you to go back tomorrow and get pictures of that chemistry stuff. Crack the safe. Natasha, I want--"

"You famous guys need to stay out of sight," I said. "If it gets out that the Avengers are in town that could either accelerate the plot or cause it to be abandoned. Either way we probably lose. You have to stay hidden until we're ready to move."

Steve looks like he really really wants to swear. "You have a point," he says reluctantly. "All right, Sam, I want you to drive him, but stay in the car," he stressed. "Can you send Redwing out to provide eyes and ears?"

"Sure," Sam said. "Anything to get me out of here for a little." Wanda hid a grin.

I felt better about sending Scott in on his own. Sam's drone is amazing. "Emma, you and Peter go back to the campus. See what you can turn up." Tony turned from his computer.

"I just sent you a couple of people to look into if you can manage it without looking suspicious. Two grad students, one of them researching water filters and the other looking at enriching drinking water supplies with vitamins, probiotics. The first guy looks clean but we might could use him on this project. See if you can meet him, get an impression, make an impression. The second guy's work looks like it might dovetail with Smith's agenda." I nodded and looked at the information; Tony had manage to dig up cursory biographies. The second student was from eastern Europe, in his late twenties, early thirties, didn't seem to be involved in campus activities, lived off campus. 

I emailed the program director and asked if it would be ok if I came back and looked around in more depth, sending it so that it would be in his inbox when he got to work the next day. I was very surprised when I got a response not ten minutes later.

"Guy needs to leave work at work," I muttered, tapping on the message to open it. It was an invitation to return any time; if I stopped by his office, he'd get me a student guide.

"Your director is unmarried," Tony said after a moment. "Probably has nothing better to do."

'When is the water filter guy in class?" I asked.

"Looks like he gets out of class at eleven tomorrow; his pattern shows him leaving about 11:30 by the main door which are right by the director's office."

I smile. Victory.

Planning went on for a few more hours; I took a catnap. A hand on my shoulder woke me up, and Steve sent those of us who were going to be out and about back to our hotel. We were given the newest-gen earpieces with two-way communication and instructions to wear them any time we left our rooms. I got five solid hours of sleep, which is not as much as it once was, and took a quick run to really wake up. Although running on pavement is harder on my feet and knees, the thrill of no obstacles still more than makes up for it. 

"Do you always hum when you're running?" Tony asked in my ear, and I shied violently. A woman walking a big Irish wolfhound hurried to reassure me that he was harmless. I smiled at her.

"Sorry, I was just in a zone," I said apologetically. "He looks like a big sweetie." She smiled and we parted when my intersection crossing indicator turned.

"Damn," I hissed, taking out my cell phone as a cover. "No, it's just nice to run on a course that is exactly what it looks like, no surprises, nice and smooth." Tony laughed and I heard him relaying this information to Steve. OMG, boys. Wait. Are they still up? Did they sleep at all? I didn't hear anything more, and I made sure to put the earpiece under a pile of papers while I showered and got ready to drive back to campus.

On the drive over, Peter seemed distracted. "Pete, if you don't want to go with me, you can hang out until I'm done," I offered. "I'm sure there's a coffee shop on campus."

"No, Mr Stark wants me to stay with you."

"Well, Tony's not here, so what I say goes, and maybe you'd like to do something else than listen to me try to charm some information out of some guys." I shook my head. "It's not likely to be pretty."

"Let's wait and see," he said evasively, and I put it down to being a teenager and also hero worship of Tony, for some reason.

The director was glad to see me again and greeted Peter. "Are you considering coming here too?" he asked.

"I've kind of got my heart set on Columbia, actually," Peter said, flushing a little. I smiled.

"I wonder if Cal Tech wouldn't be a better fit for him," I said, reaching over to smooth some hair out of his eyes. "He's so gifted, I just want to be able for him to maximize his opportunities. Not that Mason isn't a great school," I said, smiling, "But if his mom is here, I think it would be better for him to have his own adventures."

The director smiled too and offered Peter a guest pass to the computer lab, which Pete accepted politely and exited the office. After some more focused talk in which I invented an interest in water filters and told him about my work with the desalination membrane at Stark Tech, his eyes lit up. "I know exactly who you should speak to. We have an international student here who is doing some very promising research on filtration problems." He got up and and asked his secretary to watch out for my target student, then rejoined me. We passed the time by him giving me paper on the program, an application, and copies of published research, a course catalog, and the university catalog. I was grateful when the secretary escorted the kid in.

He was tall and thin, with ginger hair and thick glasses. His accent was Scottish, smoothed by years of education in the States, but there were still some words I had to extrapolate to understand. He was abrupt but not rude about it, and agreed to show me his work as long as it didn't take too much time. I could hear Tony laughing in my ear. I got a quick tour of the relevant labs and a general summary of his masters research. He was primarily working on heavy metals removal but was working on a multistage filter that would also adsorb bacteria and viruses.

"That looks fantastic," I said sincerely. "What about other types of toxins?" He responded with an explanation of the parameters of various types of filters. I hoped Tony was getting this. I thanked him for his time, shook his hand, and found Peter in the computer lab, where he was chatting with some students. After a few minutes, he walked out to where I was standing, seeming somewhat more cheerful. We grabbed some lunch at a campus restaurant, then headed back to the car. I took out my earpiece and dropped it into my purse as we left the parking lot.

"So do you want to tell me what's really bothering you?" I asked gently, and after a moment, he took his earpiece out too and closed his hand over it. I imagined Tony squawking and suppressed a grin. 

"It's stupid," he mumbled, and for a minute he looked like a typical surly fifteen year old boy.

"So?" I said, shrugging. He relaxed a bit.

"So. It's just that my parents died when I was a baby. I don't even remember them. I have Aunt May, and she's great, but I keep a lot from her. I have two lives that I try to keep very separate." He was silent a moment. "It was just that when we were on the campus that night and you introduced me as your son and gave me a hug. And in the director's office, when you were talking about wanting me to have opportunities. It just..um... it just felt really nice. Kind of like I did have a mom that I could share everything with."

Geeze. His words hit me right in the feels. "It's not stupid," I said after a few rapid blinks. "I never had a dad, my mom died when I was in high school, I spent a lot of time with my grandparents. So I can kind of understand. And it's true that I want you to have the best opportunities, I certainly worry about you. I mean it when I tell you to let me know if you want to talk at all or if you have a problem to discuss. You're a special kid, Peter, and I care about you."

"Me too," he mumbled. "But you could still have kids, right? You're not that old. You and Mr Rogers..."

"Well, actually, I can't have kids," I said gently, ignoring the part about Steve. "So you're the closest thing I'll have to a son of my own." He still stared straight ahead, but he seemed to relax. I patted his hand. "So seriously. Call me whenever you want, not just when there's a problem. And I should probably tell you that I set up a scholarship fund for you. You've already 'applied,' that's to avoid questions from your aunt, but you'll be getting the funds regardless of the schools you choose. It's for a half-million dollars; you'll get a full ride plus living expenses for as many degrees as you want to pursue, and you get whatever's left over once you finally graduate to get you started. So when you think about colleges, think about what's the best school for your plans, not whether you can afford it. Don't limit yourself." He looked at me in disbelief. "Tony will be giving you a Stark scholarship as well, so you can structure your educational funding however you want. You can talk it over with Foggy, the lawyer who set it up. You'll like him, he's a nice guy. He can be trusted with anything you want to tell him. That's just in case something happens to me, but I'm planning on being around."

He looked away, and there was silence in the car for a bit. Then there was a sniff to my right, and after a moment he said, "Thanks." A further pause. "My hand's buzzing. I guess I should put this back in."

I snorted and rummaged in my purse. "Tony hates not knowing everything. You don't have to answer questions if you don't want to; you can tell him to talk to me instead, honey." I parked on the street and we walked into the hotel to report. In the elevator, Peter kissed my cheek. I put my arm around him and gave him a squeeze.

I caught hell when we entered the suite, but I rebuffed it all. "It was a personal conversation, nothing to do with the current situation," I said to Tony, who was fuming. "He wanted a female perspective on a personal issue is all." Peter flushed. Tony was somewhat mollified, but yammered on a bit about how now was not the time to lose focus.

"You're just upset because your nosiness was thwarted," Steve said airily, coming into the meeting room. "So let's talk about what we learned."

Ultimately, we decided that, pending what we learned from the photos that Scott was getting for us, we'd ask this guy to work on some filters as an emergency measure, in case somehow Viper managed to dump the stuff in the reservoirs and it was stable. Toward the end, Sam and Scott came in, and Scott handed Tony the high-quality camera. Tony took the SD card out immediately and printed out copies of the formulas. I blew out a breath. Chemistry was a long time ago. Partway through the first page, Tony pulled out sets of molecular stick and ball model kits and passed me a couple. We had to construct models of functional groups, ripping off atoms and sticking on others, to understand what was going on. The others got bored and started talking about...other things. I tuned them out. A couple hours later, we had some data.

"So essentially what is described here is a system of syntheses and purifications," I said. "They're very precise, and the final structure seems very stable. There are a couple of places where there are charges, which could allow for additional binding sites. The main question is what the R group is."

"Could be anything," Tony muttered. "Hormone, protein, catalyst, enzyme... we don't know because there's no way to tell from the structure what it's meant to do. We need to hear from the people who intend to use this to find out what what we need to do. It's polar, though, so it's suitable for introduction into the water and it shouldn't break down when it dissolves." His frustration fairly boiled off him.

"What kind of surveillance does Smith have on that house?" Steve asked.

"Nothing," Sam said. "No cameras in or out, no listening devices. She doesn't even have WiFi."

"We need to bug the house and monitor the incoming and outgoing company," Tony said immediately. "We'll have to have a courier bring down equipment from Stark Tower. I have passive audio collectors and very small cameras to use outdoors." Tony immediately called Maria Hill. Ultimately it was decided that after it got dark, we'd go over and Scott would go back into the house and set the bugs while I would help Tony place the cameras. The theory was that a couple could walk slowly and wouldn't be as suspicious as a solo man. We wouldn't actually be putting them on Smith's property; there were a lot or trees and fences in her neighbors' yards that would work fine and we wouldn't have to worry about her finding them by accident.

Maria showed up with the room service and handed Tony the package. He rooted through it and was satisfied, then asked her to work on recruiting the student we'd decided on. "Expense whatever you need to," he said grandly, and Maria just shook her head and left.

We got ready to leave; my white dress shirt wasn't really suitable for skulking. I borrowed a black v-neck sweater from Natasha; it fit well and was a cashmere blend. Nice. She also gave me a can of mousse that had wash-out color in it; when I was done I had mousy light brown hair. She also did some makeup that subtly altered the look of my face, making my eyes look deeper set than they were, minimizing the fullness of my lips and making my cheekbones stand out more. My appearance was approved and Steve ruffled a few feathers by announcing that he was driving. It wasn't as risky in the dark and would provide us with some good backup, but I think he was just going stir-crazy, stuck in a hotel room with Tony.

Scott jumped out through a slightly opened window as we passed the house; there was a parking spot a block up, and Tony and I got out and ambled back. It was easy; there wasn't anybody else on the street and the cameras were easily pinned to structures. Their lenses would be adjusted remotely; all we had to do is place them more-or-less facing the house. We walked around to the alley and did the same thing for the detached garage. Then we sauntered back around the front, headed back for the car. "She just turned the corner," Steve said over coms right after we'd passed the house. "She took the bus. She's going to cross paths with you."

Before I could say or do anything, Tony stepped to the edge of the side walk and pulled me against him, his lips confident on mine.

Wow. That's really not at all so very bad at all. Nice. Just the right pressure and teasing, not too demanding... I heard footsteps approaching, and Tony changed the position of the kiss to better obscure our faces. The footsteps stopped. What the hell? Tony kissed down my throat, then over to the ear that didn't have the earpiece.

"Stop overthinking," he murmured, nuzzling me. "It's affecting your performance. " I drew an outraged breath, but then we were back to kissing, and the footsteps finally started again and moved past us. I swear I could hear a "tut" as the woman passed. It sure looked like Viper from the back. I peered over Tony's shoulder as she went up the walk, taking out her keys and opening the door. I waited until she'd gone inside, then detached myself, peeling off Tony's hands.

"She might still be watching," he said crisply, so I took his arm cozily and marched him up the street to the car. Steve was glowering when we got in.

"Was that really necessary?" he asked, a tone in his voice.

"Yes," Tony said cheerfully. Steve looked at him balefully. Scott interrupted before tempers could flare, saying that he was coming back. I looked out the window as we rode back to the hotel, absently smoothing my hair, discreetly straightening my sweater, adjusting the neckline. Scott smirked but didn't say anything. It was a pretty silent drive.

Back at the hotel, I returned Natasha's sweater and collected Sam and Peter for the return to our hotel. We were all waiting for data to roll in, and the environment was more relaxed at our rooms. We ended up playing a variety of card games in Sam's room and had a pretty good time until it was time to consider bed. I had to wash the colored mousse out of my hair; I didn't want to mess up the pillowcases and it would be gross if it started running during my morning jog. I just hoped that we'd get information we could really use tomorrow.


	41. Heating up

I got up early and did my morning run up and down the Mall. I hoped Steve would remember my dedication to cardio the next time he put up some ridiculous obstacle on the course and I yelled at him about it. Because: civilization. Civilization means never being in mud up to your panties. Because there's gosh-darn PAVEMENT everywhere. And there were stairs, too. At the Lincoln memorial, my favorite. It's inspiring. It makes you realize that anyone can change their way of thinking, given attention and even a slightly open mind, because Lincoln didn't start out to be anti-slavery. He came around to it later in life, and the results are legendary. And the speeches. So clear and evocative and concise. A righteous guide. And then you can feel like you've had kind of a workout for the soul, the reminder that it isn't easy to do the right thing, seeing the mercy after the hard times, because you just know that Reconstruction would have looked very different if he'd been charge of it.

Steve is obviously a larger-than-life second coming of Lincoln, although without the presidency thing. But he can be so irritating. Then again, when I saw the movie Lincoln, I thought that he could be a colossal pain in the butt, which made him more human and approachable rather than the colossal marble martyr he's become. Also. I don't believe that Lincoln would have ever put on a tight red, white and blue suit. Given his physique, it's probably for the best. He'd need one of Tony's suits. Steve's physique could probably make ancient Greek sculptors weep for joy.

My musings are interrupted by Steve himself, telling me to cut the run short (?!), get the guys, and report. There have been Developments. And yes, I can pretty much hear the capital D. I trot down the hotel hall and pound on doors as I go. Heads pop out. "Get your gear, there have been developments," I inform them.

Sam squints at me suspiciously. "You sound awfully cheery for this hour of the morning"

"It's 7:30 am, it's not the ass crack of dawn," I point out.

Scott looks enlightened. "Did you get laid last night?"

I stop dead and scowl. "No! This must be a runner's high. I've never had one before. Don't harsh my mellow, guy." Peter starts to laugh.

'You run all the time at the complex," he points out.

"No, I run a little, then have to do some godawful thing, then I run a bit more. It's not nearly as nice."

I hear snickering through the com. Tony's monitoring. "Ok, let's be ready in fifteen," I say, and hustle into my room for a quick stretch and shower.

Steve looks up grumpily when we get to the suites at the other hotel. To make up for the peremptory summons, there's breakfast. I help myself and sit down at the table.

"I can't believe you hate the obstacle course so much," he complains. "That's all I've heard from you this week, how nice it is just to get the cardio in."

It dawns on me that he's a little upset. He does design the course. "Well," I say carefully, "It's just that I've never needed to crawl under a sheet of barbed wire through mud. Or go through a mudfield the size of a football field. Or carry a five gallon bucket filled with sand halfway to Rio. Or--"

"At least you're not dealing with live fire when you run the course," Bucky pointed out, dropping into the chair beside me. I nod. There is that.

"And I appreciate that it provides challenges, and I can see that perhaps there might be times when I'll need to climb a cargo net or traverse a vertical wall. And I really do love the zip line," I say, trying to cheer Steve up, wishing like hell I'd been more discreet. "It's just that a simple run is a nice change of pace, pardon the pun." He brightens, marginally.

Steve turns away to answer a question from Natasha, and I breathe a silent breath of relief. "What happened last night?" Bucky asks me, sotto voice. "Because he's been in a foul mood since he got back and Stark's been irritably smug."

"Is THAT what this is about?" I whisper-snap at Bucky. His eyes widen.

Fortunately, Tony hits the projector before this can go any farther, and a booking photograph of a younger Ms Smith is shown, scars and all. "This is Anna Smith, aka Madame Hydra, Leona Hiss, Viper. Her real name is Ophelia Sarkissian, originally from Hungary. HYDRA leader, mercenary, subversive, terrorist, smuggler, criminal. Wanted by INTERPOL and the security forces of several countries, including this one. She wears hybrid Kevlar/metal armor and uses various guns as well as a bullwhip and throwing darts dipped in poison. She is a normal human female with extensive martial arts training. She's smart, cunning, and has extensive contacts throughout the world's criminal enterprises. And this is where it starts to get interesting. She's has a lot of money and influence, an uncanny streak of luck, very stealthy and experienced in espionage. And she's used controlled exposure to become immune to most common, and many uncommon, toxins. The darts she uses are coated in a combination of snake venoms, chosen to wreak the most havoc possible before the victim dies.

"Currently, she's the leader of the Serpent Society, a group I've never heard of." Headshakes around the table. This must be something new and icky. "Individuals known by the code names Copperhead, Fer de Lance, Puff Adder, Cobra, Rattler, and Asp form this society, led by Viper."

"Sess and Namitar make a lot more sense now," I said sourly, and Tony nodded.

"Information recovered from the safe Scott cracked indicated payment to them and the rest of Night Terror. There were also separate payments to those two individuals and it seems that they might have had a hand in devising this compound, whatever it is, as well as improving weapons for this group. We don't know how far their work extends in this current project. Namitar's involvement makes this a scarier proposition."

"I'm working on intelligence about these people's abilities, but I think we can assume that they're all dangerous. Once we have this information and find out where the substance they're cooking up is being held, we'll be able to move."

"We'll need to alert the authorities when we find out more," Steve sighed. With that, the meeting sort of broke up; everybody got more serious about their breakfast, then the house-bound Avengers create a schedule to monitor the surveillance on the house. Tony goes to work searching and hacking his way through the internet with the help of Vision. The rest of us start a cutthroat game of gin rummy. Peter is dispatched to the drugstore around the corner for M&Ms, the supergigantic bag, to use for stakes. And occasional snacks. It doesn't do to eat your stake by accident.

By mid afternoon, Tony has a likely location for the stuff, a unit in a mostly abandoned industrial park outside of Falls Church. Sam and Scott get to go check it out. They take their winnings when they go for a treat on the way.

It's almost four hours later when they get back. We've given up on the cards and are watching the news. "It's definitely the place," Sam reports, and Scott describes an extensive operation; there are several different apparatuses set up which we can see allows for the synthesis and purification described in the formulas we saw earlier, including a complex distillation apparatus. Suddenly one of the steps makes a lot more sense.

"Why does everything have to be purified?" Natasha asked. "It's just going to be used to sicken or poison people."

"Because otherwise you won't get as much active material; the syntheses will react with the unwanted products from the prior reactions, cutting down your yield. It could also disrupt a reaction if there's enough crap in there," Peter said, and I nodded.

"How close do you think they are to producing enough stuff?" Steve asked, and Scott shrugged.

"They had three containers the size of pony kegs that were full and one that is about half full. There weren't any other empty ones, so however long it takes to fill that one is my guess." It seemed reasonable.

"Ok, go back tonight. We need eyes and ears," Steve said, and they nodded. I started to hope that we'd have this thing wrapped up soon.


	42. More than one mission

The next morning I get up extra early and go for the monuments run again. I take a moment, though, to tour the WWII memorial because I've never been. (Hi, FDR! Hi, Fala!) And as I pound around the pavement afterward, I think that the memorial, like all memorials, is grand and splendid, and ultimately hollow and sterile. It's sanitized, even this one honoring the last good war. And I think that if you're going to do a memorial right, you need to actually show the blood and guts of it. Explosions going off to the right of you, the whine of bullets to your left. The smell of blood spilling and clotting and drying on a hot day, screams and men shouting in foreign languages. The confusion and fear and determination of it. Hot sand and wet jungle from the Pacific. Muddy fields and trees splintering from bombardments and clearing towns house to house. Of course, tourism would immediately stutter to a halt, because that's too real. It's easier to talk about sacrifice than actually do it, or standing around looking at marble and bronze honoring heroes before checking the site off the list of touristy things to do before going to a bar for a refreshing beverage and tapas. And you suspect that you might not have the guts to do what those soldiers did, if it was down to you. Then, just because, I took the steps up and down the great penis of monuments, the Washington Monument. I took out my earpiece and put it in my bra, first, though. Don't need any commentary on the puffing and panting as I go. I'm not worried about missing anything because the thing vibrates slightly when somebody is speaking and it tickles. I actually forget about it until I'm back in the hotel and it falls to the carpet when I go to take my shower.

I'm almost ready when there's a knock on the door. "Mr Stark is upset because you're not answering," Peter reports, and I roll my eyes.

"I was in the shower," I explain to Peter. "Are these things even waterproof?"

"Mr Stark says they are and that you should leave yours in at all times, especially in the shower or if you're taking a bath," Peter relates, a little nervously.

"No," I just say, shaking my head, and I slip on my pumps.

"Oh, and we're supposed to check out of this place." It doesn't take me long to pack as I never unpack; I just have to grab my toiletries and doublecheck to make sure nothing went astray. I grab my jacket and bags and we head out. I finally slip the earbug back in once we're in the elevator.

In the conference room, though, Tony's teasing is absent as he sets up another presentation. "Lots of activity at the manufacturing point, boys and girls," he says briskly. "Last night everybody came by. So we have pictures and biographies. Now, in order, from most normal to least, we have Copperhead, aka Davis Lawters. American. He seems to be straight human. Strong, he works out and all, but he's got micromesh chainmail armor, a fang-like grappling hook, suction cups for wall scaling, and wrist doohickies that produce paralyzing electrical blasts.

"Fer de Lance, one Teresa Vasquez, from Puerto Rico. She has superhuman strength and durability, trained in hand to hand and in sharp weapons. She has these foot-long talons attached one to each wrist, and apparently they're coated with poison of some kind.

"Then there's Asp, Cleo Nefertiti, also known as Temptress, from Egypt. Her character's a bit of a cliche, but don't underestimate her. She can ooze venom from her pores, adjust the potency of the venom to paralyze or kill, and she has energy venom bolts. She can rebuild her energy levels in about ten minutes by doing this swaying, undulating thing, so if you see her doing that, stop her. She's a skilled pilot and hacker, and she's also a dancer, both classically-trained and exotic." More than one pair of eyebrows quirked at that.

"Then we've got Puff Adder, or Gordon Fraley, as his parents named him. American, some mutations. He can puff himself up to make himself bigger and superhuman stronger and can breathe a corrosive, toxic gas strong enough to go through metal.

"And there's Rattler. Gustav Kringer from Poland. He's the other student at the school, Emma. He's got a seven foot long bionic tail."

"The hell?" Sam complained.

"Must be detachable, because there's no mention anywhere locally about a guy with a tail that can't be tucked away in his pants. It can grip, bludgeon, support weight up to about 550 pounds, and even more fun, he can shake it to produce a sonic shockwave that can confuse and disorient people up to ten feet away. His major weakness is that he's about 85% deaf and depends on hearing aids in his uniform cowl."

Tony brings up the final picture and pauses. The man isn't remarkable looking, so he must be pretty bad in abilities. "This is Cobra. Klaus Voorhees, Dutch by birth. He was a former criminal, working with a doctor on a humanitarian mission, when he was bitten by a radioactive cobra. Unlike our boy Sess, his body was mutagenically altered in very major ways to help him simulate a snake's movement. All his bones are extremely malleable and the muscles are extraordinarily resilient and pliable. Because of these characteristics, he can fit his entire body through openings as small as six inches in diameter. His extreme flexibility also enables him to produce a constructor-like grip and the man can slither for short bursts at up to fifty mph. On top of that, he has a silicon/graphite dust suit to make him even more slippery, suction devices to enable him to go up walls and across ceilings, and blades coated in cobra venom."

"I think I'm going to throw up," I muttered, and Bucky patted my arm.

"This bunch think that they will be finished in production of their goo early this evening; they're working through the day to get it done, and they'll be dumping it tonight, whenever they've got it done," Tony finished grimly.

Steve stood. "This is beyond us and the local cops. We have to bring in the big guns; they'll have to go to The Raft when we capture them. Tony will be working with the FBI, and we will be taking the lead on this operation. I don't actually think we'll have much trouble insisting on that point, although Ross doesn't mind being a hero with other people's lives. But whether or not they're ready, we go tonight. We will infiltrate the reservoir this afternoon, regardless of what Tony manages to arrange by then, and we will wait until the snake guys all show up, and we will take them into custody. However, given the nature of the mutations in this crew, we will be using lethal means to apprehend them. Especially Cobra. I can't imagine that capture will be easy or maybe even possible, so if you get a kill shot, don't hesitate to take it." His eyes rake over the team, lingering on Peter and me. "If it's him or one of us, there's no contest." He takes some questions, then makes some specific assignments. I am preferentially to target Asp because my skin is impervious to damage. We're kind of assuming poison or venom wouldn't penetrate my skin because other liquids, including acids I use in my workshop don't, but we don't know for sure. It's a good reason to try to stay out of range, at least to start with. Peter is not to engage any of them directly but to use his webbing to incapacitate. He looks rebellious.

"Yes, part of it is because you're under age," Steve tells him, up front. "But another part of it is that you're not used to fighting in a team. We can work on that this summer when you come out, but there is a difference. And your ability to throw webbing around will really help us. We need at least some of them alive to question, if possible." Peter looks somewhat mollified by Steve's bluntness and rationale. "Stark and I are going to be on the phone, lining things up, so I want you all to take it easy today. Eat balanced meals, rest up. I want you ready when it's time to move out." He and Tony grab their pads and go into another room to set this op up.

The day is excruciatingly boring. Nobody talks a lot and I think we're all freaked out by this Cobra guy, even Bucky. It's a relief when Steve comes out and tells us to suit up. He goggles at me briefly; I took some time to dye my hair a hot pink. I don't like the white hair with the costume because the white hair is me. I like change that I can put on or take off with the costume. I have some new contacts that cover most of the eye and have a small ability to adsorb particles to the surface, which may help with all the toxins that could be thrown around. Plus they're black, which looks kind of cool or disturbing, depending on your mindset. They brought both the white armor and the first suit I had from my Armorer identity, the gray leather one. I choose this one because if there's electric bolts being shot out, I do not want to be wrapped in conductive metal. Plus I can wear the urumi with this one. I've got the flexible white mask as well, which I wear despite the contacts. I need all the help I can get, I think.

Infiltration isn't hard; we park a ways away and we are dropped off on the way so that we can take up preassigned observation points. I climb a tree at some distance from the pools of water and start scanning. Sam can also scan through a few spectra using the goggles from his suit, so he's covering another approach. We made it to the reservoir around dusk, so it's not as absurd as it would have looked during the day, a bunch of adults in weird costumes.

It's been full dark for several hours before I get the first hint of the impending conflict. It's cold, I'm chilly, and I kinda need to pee, but that gets pushed out of my mind when I see a knot of heat signatures moving slowly over a ridge. I report this and Cap puts the team on notice. Sam sees another group moving toward another of the open pools, so it looks like they're just planning on dumping and running. Wanda reports that a man matching the description of Copperhead just knocked the guard in the guardhouse unconscious; the other guards should be on rounds, that's their usual MO, but tonight they've been taken off their duties. The baddies shouldn't be aware of this, though.

My bunch of baddies contains Asp, so yay, I'm in the right place. She's wearing a very thin white body suit that is more of a distraction than a costume, sleeveless with high-cut legs and neckline, and little fall of fabric over her butt like a tail. Her comrade Puff Adder keeps eyeing her boobs. Her dark hair is long and loose, which is good for me if I can grab it in the fight. And if it's not weaponized in some way, which with this bunch is not necessarily an assumption I can make. They are allowed to approach the pools with the containers. Then bright floodlights flick on, temporarily blinding them.

"Place the containers on the ground and put your hands in the air," a new voice barks out over a bullhorn. "This is the FBI and you are under arrest."

Of course, they do nothing of the sort and we go into action. Asp does not go down easy. She's very flexible and she has a hypnotic, sensual way of moving that rolls off her like her venom. I'm not kidding. It oozes out of her skin and travels in rivulets, the venom, that is. Her sensuality is distracting even to me and it's good that she's my assignment rather than one of the boys. She tries to use her energy bolts and crap, the energy part hurts, but I use my fan and manage to damage them enough to make them unusable. She becomes very agitated at this (but that might also be because I broke one of her wrists in the process) and smears her acrid venom on my hands. I can't possibly tell you how relieved I am that it just beads up and rolls off. She is distracted when I don't fall to the ground in agony, I guess, and I use the metal pole of my poleaxe to knock her out. I call for Peter to come over and immobilize her so that she can't do her energy collection dance when she wakes up. He starts shooting webbing over her but is a little distracted by her body, which is curvy and amazing. I have to get his attention back on the job, but by the time he's done, she's pretty much encased and not going anywhere. Her venom doesn't seem to affect the webbing, which is really good news.

Wanda took out Copperhead by messing with his mind. He's curled up in the corner, sobbing and rocking, so we relieve him of his grappling hook, suction cups gizmos, and the electrical wrist devices. I'm not anxious to encounter anything like that again today, and Peter webs his wrists and ankles to the pavement as a precaution.

Bucky and Natasha are battling Puff Adder, which is a ridiculous name but the man is no joke; he is big and strong and scary. They keep him off balance enough so that he can't concentrate on producing his toxic gas. Vision and Wanda join them, and I'm called away to the other fight.

This is the main event under the big top. Sam has engaged Fer de Lance and is holding his own, having managed to neutralize the talons on her wrists. Scott is apparently in Rattler's tail, trying to cause damage, but the tail is apparently a mess of cables and the structure is complex, so it's not the easiest job, and Tony is fighting him, using his aerial abilities to keep damage from the tail to a minimum. What a monstrosity that tail is. It's a lot more agile than we thought it would be. He's trying to open one of the canisters. Clint is kind of hampered by the close range and high concentration of teammates, so he's taking charge of the canisters and helping where he can.

Cap is engaging Cobra and barely holding his own. I run behind the mutant, who is moving in ways that are unnatural and quite disturbing, and as Cobra lunges at Cap, I hurl the poleaxe at his back because I'm not going to be there in time. Man, Bucky's going to be mad. He's always telling me not to throw away a weapon you can still use. It sticks in his skin briefly before falling to the ground and Cobra whips around. I think that I'm about to pee myself when he kind of melts, his bones and muscles moving like a snake, slithering rapidly toward me. I am too terrified to move, but somehow I grab the first throwing knife from the back of my glove and throw it. Amazingly, it sticks, but then I can see the muscles bunch and force it out. I throw the second and third and fourth and fifth and sixth, but it's all the same result. Cap gets around him and we stand shoulder to shoulder; he gives me back the poleaxe so at least there's that.

Mercifully, the others have put down Puff Adder and the authorities are mopping up; I register this in distraction. I am more grateful than I can even contemplate to see the five others join us. Peter heads over to Sam. Vision and Wanda go help Tony and Bucky and Natasha circle behind Cobra. Even with four of us attacking, he's fast and dangerous. Cap is limping from where his left leg was damaged by constriction and we've had several near misses from the venom-coated blades.

There's a crack to my left and Cap groans; I look over and see Viper coming out of the trees, showing her skill with the long, tough bullwhip as she lashes Cap. Shit, I'd completely forgotten about her, but this is one thing I can do better than anybody on the team. I shove my poleaxe at Cap and free the urumi from its waist sheath. She smiles at me, the smile hitching on the scars on the right side of her face, and sends the whip questing toward me.

It's worth quite a bit to see the shock on her face when the urumi severs her whip into four pieces effortlessly. I'm on the attack immediately, and the urumi bites into her hand and arm as she tries to pull a gun. She screams and drops it and as she turns, I send the urumi against her again. The blades slice the metal like a scalpel through gauze, and she falls to her knees, bleeding from the stripes along her side. There's no quit in her, though, and she starts to get to her feet again. It takes two more passes before she concedes to my request to stay down. I back away as the feds appear on the very edge of the combat zone and take her away. I turn back. Fer de Lance is practically mummified in Pete's webbing, still struggling, but the feds are approaching to remove her.

Even as I look at Rattler, his tail falls off midway through a sonic shock and I can hear Scott's whoops of victory. Looking at Cobra, we're finally winning that one too, mostly because somebody's managed to slice him up a lot with the poleaxe and apparently he doesn't have any surprises for us like healing abilities or venom spitting. But before I can do anything, he abruptly changes direction and his arms elongate, pulling me off balance and he scoops me up, arms going around me and squeezing my ribs and abdomen. "Shoot him!" I shriek, and that's all I can manage as the constriction tightens every time I let out a breath. I get one little strike with the urumi before my arms are held to my side. Creepily, one nasty freaky elongated hand is resting on my breast. I feel a rib pop. I'm starting to feel the lack of oxygen when something bounces off my hip and Cobra recoils. Then he screams, right by my ear and really loudly, and his grip releases. Tony is right there to drag me away and I drop to the ground, sucking air greedily. I look over and see that Bucky managed to sever a leg with the poleaxe, Natasha is hitting Cobra repeatedly with her Widow's Bite, and Cap has him in a headlock. A brave fed has crept in and is injecting what I assume to be a tranquilizer. 

Tony asks me urgently if I'm hurt, and I gesture toward my ribs. Sam comes over and thinks I've got a couple of cracked ribs. He's not looking too good himself; he's showing some bruising and there are cuts on his arms as well as a long scrape that looks like road rash. Tony's suit is dented but he's ok aside from some bruising. Peter shows up and anxiously asks if I'm ok. He's fine, which is important, and he carefully puts his arm around my shoulder. I put my arm around his waist. My other arm is starting to hurt some; the Cobra's other hand had been squeezing my forearm, but not hard enough to break it. The team gathers on the sidelines as Cobra goes down and the feds move in.

Cap's leg might be broken, but he has that healing ability and he'll be fine in a couple of days, so I'm the worst off. Since there's nothing majorly wrong, scrapes are cleaned by an ambulance crew, a couple of cuts stitched, and then we go along with the feds and give our statements, which takes most of the rest of the night.

"Fortunately, none of the canisters were opened," one rather offensively perky fed tells me. He seems to have been energized by the operation, but then again, he wasn't doing the hard work, I think uncharitably. "The guy known as Puff Adder says that it's a mutagenic agent that was supposed to absorb through the skin and create snake-like, scaly skin, maybe some other cosmetic issues, but that there's also the chance that it could make people crazy, so we're lucky it wasn't successful. Even the White House uses this water."

I shuddered. "Why?" I asked.

"Apparently it was designed to be some sort of a declaration to the underworld, kind of 'look what we can do.' But I think it was more than that, Puff might not have known everything. I think Asp and Viper might have gone after money or secrets in the fuss the mutations would have caused if it worked. That Asp has international warrants for hacking," the fed said.

We all went back to the hotel; there were plenty of beds available. I didn't get one, despite Tony's generous offer to share his, though; my ribs were feeling worse so I slept sitting up on one of the sofas which had a recliner on one end. Natasha and Wanda rounded up some blankets and pillows and tucked me in, then everybody went to bed. I slept fitfully, waking up around six when Peter's aunt started texting me. I just picked up the phone and called her, reassuring her that we'd kept her nephew well away from any danger (it was relative) and that we'd return him today. Then I went in to take a bath. I was developing some very exciting new colors as the bruises started to heal. I also wanted to wash the pink out of my hair. I reduced the hue to an almost-unnoticeable level before dragging myself out of the tub and managing some more sleep.

We didn't start to assemble until about four in the afternoon. We'd been sleeping for about eleven hours, more or less. I woke up when Tony started playing with my hair. "Up and at 'em, Easter Egg," he said. I growled at him but he was not impressed.

"Oh, you've got to fire up one of your private jets," I said, yawning. "We need to get Pete back to his aunt. She probably will never let him come on a jaunt again.' I looked over and saw Peter texting, a resigned look on his face. I got up, walked over, and asked what was going on. He flushed a little to see my nightdress (whoops, I didn't bring a robe, maybe there was one in the bathroom) and kept his eyes on my face. 

"Just texting MJ," he said. "Doesn't look like I'll be able to make it to the dance tonight."

"Homecoming's tonight?" I asked. "I completely forgot. No, wait. Don't send that. Tell her you're sorry but you won't be able to take her to dinner but you'll meet her there." I looked around. "Tony. How fast can you get the jet ready?"

"It's not a big deal," Peter said, trying to reel me in.

"It is a big deal," I retorted. "You're only fifteen this one year and this is might be your only date with this girl if you don't get there in time. This is a big dance and you will be attending."

Tony smirked at me. "It'll be two hours," he said.

"Ok. Peter, do you have a suit?" I went over details with him. In all the fuss of this expedition, he'd forgotten to order his date flowers.

"I'm on it," Natasha assured me briskly, and left the suite with Wanda.

"You won't have time to go and change at home," Tony said; he grabbed his jacket and Steve, who had just joined the crisis in progress, and together they towed Peter out the door.

I went to change. Holy crap, I looked bad. I was grateful for the super cosmetics our labs had come up with. Last time I had bruises, a well-meaning woman had given me information about a battered women's shelter. By the time I creaked out (stiff and sore and not able to bend at the waist) Natasha and Wanda had returned with a gorgeous wrist corsage with tiny ivory rosebuds and jasmine and feathery ferny things with some other sort of glossy dark leaves. About forty five minutes later the boys returned with a beautiful charcoal suit, shirt, tie, cufflinks, shoes, the works. Pete went to go change, and when he came out, I took pictures and Natasha and Wanda cooed over him. Natasha reclaimed the corsage from the refrigerator and I tied his heavy steel blue silk tie, then fluffed his pocket handkerchief so that it was jaunty and confident rather than just peeking out of the breast pocket.

"Ok, honey, take her out for dessert after the dance," I instructed him. "It will be a nice way of winding down, especially since you couldn't make dinner. Plus she won't have to worry about spilling on her dress. Now, do you have money for a cab?"

Before Peter could speak, Tony said, "He'll have one of the company drivers." I beamed at him, then tucked some money into Peter's inner coat pocket and stepped back.

"You look great," I said. "Now go and have a great time." Tony patted a little aftershave on him. Natasha leaned in and sniffed, nodding, then Bucky towed him downstairs and put him in a cab for the airport, giving detailed instructions to the driver. I texted the pictures to Peter's aunt, then we went to go pack. Clint went early to get the quinjet ready. I can't wait to get home.


	43. Aftermath

The late night and sleeping all day was going to screw up our sleep cycles for a bit. After we landed, I dutifully went to the clinic, where I was diagnosed with two cracked ribs and some soft tissue damage. They used the tissue accelerator, and where I'd been squeezed felt better, including my arm. Because I had a female doctor, I also showed her the handprint on my breast where that fucker Cobra had groped me while he was squeezing the life out of me and had her work on that too. Bastard.

After that, I joined everybody at dinner, which is where my dogs found me. Excited woofing, mad tail wagging, and tummies exposed for rubs. Torburn licked my face and Sigurd put his head on my shoulder as I hugged him. After I told them how much I'd missed them, they settled down and when I asked about Odin or if there was any news, I just got the canine equivalent of a shrug. We all went up to the rec room, which is where Nick found us and we gave our after action report. Nick in turn told us that the criminals had been transported safely to The Raft, so hopefully they'd stay put for awhile.

Around midnight, Peter sent me some selfies from the dance, which I put up on screen to share with the others. It wasn't hard to see why Peter liked this MJ, she was cute as a button and looked smart, the kind of girl who would find it easy to have fun and whoever was with her would also have fun. Pete was shy and had a tendency to tripping over his tongue when he was awestruck. I fancied that he was getting better with that last part, though; hanging out with his heroes Iron Man and Captain America--and the men they actually were--was giving him a boost to his self-confidence.

"The flowers are perfect for her," I said to Wanda and Natasha. She was wearing a cute short green dress, strapless, so the wrist band on the corsage was a great call. Peter's tie and silk pocket square complimented her dress well; they looked like they belonged together without being all matchy-matchy. "Nice call on the tie," I said to Tony.

"That was actually Rogers," he said, a little irritated. "I thought he should get a red one."

"They would have looked like Christmas," Bucky said, starting to laugh, which set the rest of us off. Even Tony, reluctantly. The last photo was them at a bakery, apparently sharing a slice of cake. I had to work hard to keep the gush to a minimum when I texted back. It looked like they'd both had a good time, and I let out a mental breath I wasn't aware I'd been holding. I'd really wanted him to have fun and, just as important, for his date to have fun with him.

I slept in the recliner in my workshop for a couple nights until my ribs felt better. I had a talk with the lab that had done the cosmetics and asked if they could do something for hair color that could be washed out completely rather than fading over multiple washings but wouldn't run when I sweated or if I got rained on. They came up with a range of colors that used a mild chemical rinse to dislodge the dye from the hair, which then was shampooed away; I could choose between "Hot-cha Pink," "Vivacious Violet," "Electric Blue," "Passion Red," Gorgeous Green," "Total Teal," "Oil Spill," (which was a black that had hints of blue, green, purple, and yellow) and "Mouse Brown," "Dishwater Blonde," and "Flat Black." They coordinated colors with optics, who made contacts for me in all the bright colors plus a hazel brown for the 'natural' colors. And my pride and joy, a pair of sparkly silver contacts that had a steel-gray rim around the edge of the iris. I loved them and asked them to make me several pairs so that I wouldn't run out. They definitely weren't for every day, though; the silver obscured the pupil, so it was a weird look. It went well with the my regular hair. Costuming thought this was fun and had masks made for me in white, gray and black that revealed my eyes. We also came to a compromise that my costumes needed to be functional for the field, and when I asked, Steve came up with a design that matched the tactical look of his, Bucky and Sam's suits. It was a full body suit in combat fabrics including Kevlar with a high neck constructed to help protect against strangulation, armor on the torso, long sleeves, gloves with a gauntlet that went halfway up my arms and held four throwing knives and over the knee boots with a modest heel that I could run in. I added a shaped metal piece on the heel where, if I was being held from behind, I could kick back and inflict some damage. There was highly shock-absorbing foam padding over the shoulders, biceps, shins and quads, and reinforcing over the ribs. They were in exciting shades of gray and there were some obviously armored elements that I made; metal bars here and there, like on the back of the hand, that would help to deflect a blade. The torso was intricately pieced together from several different fabrics for a subtle detail and that also minimized the sheath of the urumi. It also felt really good to wear, sort of like a compression sock for the whole body.

In exchange for the new field costume, I agreed to keep wearing ornate costumes for the public appearances, like Halloween, where we had a trick or treat party for the public at the visitors center. That was fun. The new field costume was well received by the public. The first time I wore it, one of the baddies said I looked hot as he tried to hit me. I said thank you and kneed him in the groin.

Nothing was changing on other fronts, though. Odin was still out of it, we hadn't heard from Thor or Sif, and Loki was keyed up and anxious but couldn't--or wouldn't--tell me anything. We had Thanksgiving again at the Barton's, which was much nicer than the previous year.

I couldn't shake the feeling that something big was approaching. I just wondered if we'd be ready for it.

********************

The story continues in Book Three, Star Dust.


End file.
